the longest-serving president of the Brazilian Republic, is ambiguous in his positions and extremely pragmatic in his political calculations, summarizes journalist and writer Lira Neto, author of the biography “Getúlio”.
Dictator and precursor of the , modernizer and centralizer, ally of the Axis countries in the . These are some of the aspects highlighted by the author when dealing with the trajectory of one of the main politicians in the country’s history.
In the three-volume work, he argues that the former president cannot be reduced to the right or the left. “He wasn’t a leftist or a rightist. He was a Getulist,” he says.
Lira Neto sees similarities between the Estado Novo, from 1964 to 1985 and the coup plot of 2022, citing the military’s behavior of considering themselves guardians of the political dispute in times of extreme political and social polarization.
He also sees parallels between Getúlio and () in addition to the long periods at the head of the federal Executive. “Both have similarities in their ability to mobilize large masses. In my opinion, the main names in Brazilian republican political history are Getúlio Vargas and Lula.”
80 years after the end of the Estado Novo and the Vargas Era, how can we analyze the relationship between Getúlio ‘father of the poor’ and Getúlio ?
The memory around Getúlio is a disputed territory. Many see him as a leader of extreme social sensitivity, creator of labor legislation, who modernized the State, was an inducer of industrialization and promoter of .
Others see the authoritarian dictator, who repressed the opposition, arrested opponents, condoned torture, censored the press and remained in power at the expense of a powerful personal propaganda machine, with the Department of Press and Propaganda.
Seeking to understand him in this dichotomous, binary way is to make the easy mistake of painting him as an angel or a devil. Getúlio was one thing and another. As such, to this day it arouses extreme passions, loves and hates, in identical proportions. His historical figure is fascinating for exactly that reason.
For you, is Getúlio left-wing or right-wing? If it cannot be seen in one of these spectrums, is it something particular or its own?
Trying to place Getúlio in any field of the political spectrum would be a Manichaean simplification. Getúlio was beyond ideologies, he was contradictory and pragmatic, capable of alternating measures that sometimes seemed to identify him with one side, and sometimes brought him closer to the other. He was neither left nor right. He was a Getulist.
They even said they were experts in “the art of taking off your socks without taking off your shoes”. So much so that, despite carrying out a coup with a fascist air, he reached the constitutional period seen by the military as a communist.
Mr. see parallels between the Estado Novo, the military dictatorship and the attempted coup under Bolsonaro?
It is always dangerous to compare different historical realities using the same ruler, ignoring particularities and the context of each specific era, at the risk of falling into anachronism. Discounting the caveat, there is interference in national political life in all three periods.
The military, previously less professionalized, began to position itself as the nation’s supreme arbiters since the Paraguayan War, accusing civilians of being incompetent and defining politics as something necessarily dirty and corrupt. Based on this, at different moments in republican history, they imposed or sought to impose the use of force as a mechanism to save the country.
Getúlio had a tense relationship, sometimes benefiting, sometimes competing with the military. In any case, the then president strengthened the Armed Forces, which then pressured him to leave in 1945. Wasn’t it a spell that turned on the sorcerer?
Getúlio’s relationship with the military has always been ambiguous. He came to power in 1930 through a movement that combined military force and civilian support from the dissident oligarchies of the First Republic. Initially, in the Provisional Government, until 1937, it tried to manage this dichotomy. In the Estado Novo, it had broad support from the Armed Forces, equipping barracks and ensuring the maintenance of a centralizing government.
But, at the end of the Second World War, the same military personnel who had supported him were responsible for his downfall, as well as for the paradigm shift in the world with the defeat of the Axis, which Brazil helped by sending troops, in addition to the democratic pressure on the regime. When [Getúlio] returned to power in 1951, the Army was divided between the nationalist wing and the so-called democratic wing. In his efforts to balance himself in this game of forces, he ended up losing the support of the barracks once and for all.
Vargas also had a dubious foreign policy, especially in relation to the Second World War, keeping the Axis on the negotiating track until a certain period, and doing the same with the United States. The coup in 1937 was fascist in inspiration. How to define this positioning?
In 1930, when running for President, asked by a journalist what his political inspiration would be, Getúlio said he was “the creative renewal of Mussolini’s fascism”. In the context of the crisis of capitalism and liberal democracies, as a result of the Great Depression, the immediate antidote seemed to be in regimes of force and autocratic governments. Getúlio’s own positivist formation, in , pointed to dictatorial solutions, to a more restricted vision of government.
Furthermore, at the time of the outbreak of war, the Nazis were Brazil’s main trading partner. Getúlio tried to balance himself in a policy of possible neutrality, obtaining benefits from both sides in conflict, until the circumstances of the British blockade of the Atlantic required the search for new partnerships. That was when he had the political ability to negotiate support for the Allies, in exchange for the viability of the national steel industry, financed in part by the USA.
Regarding the Estado Novo and its exceptions, academics cite the lack of documents or sources to unravel and question the period, which saw widespread persecution and torture. Mr. Do you think this analysis makes sense?
I don’t believe in the scarcity of documents to analyze the period. The sources are plentiful. The files are full of them. There are excellent works on the Estado Novo, from the most varied aspects, such as those by Ângela Castro Gomes, Antônio Pedro Tota, Maria Celina D’Araújo, Marly Vianna and many others. The problem is that the second dictatorship, post-1964, even due to its historical proximity, always aroused more interest on the part of researchers, whether journalists or academics.
Getúlio was embraced by the labor legacy, the CLT, the Labor Court and the modernization of the State. How much of this legacy is still left today, given the precariousness of work and the dispute over the size of the State?
Labor legislation, which began in 1931 and culminated in the CLT in 1943, modernized the relationship between capital and labor in the country which, from a historical perspective, had just emerged from the slavery regime. Although the unions are under the supervision of the State, the CLT was essential for gaining rights and organizing the working class.
Since then, of course, the world of work has changed, due to new technologies and new social dynamics. There is a lot to be discussed in this area. But wanting to destroy workers’ rights is a perversion. Satanizing the CLT and selling the precariousness and uberization of the economy as a panacea, in the name of supposed entrepreneurship, is nothing more than clumsy cynicism.
Lula compares himself from time to time with Getúlio Vargas, says he modernizes the Brazilian State and is even spending a long period in power. Mr. Do you see common aspects between the two?
Lula, who at the time as a trade unionist rejected the legacy of Vargas laborism, precisely because of the state’s tutelage over the labor movement, recognizes the historical importance of Getulismo, even because of his legacy as a leader, as a statesman. Both have notable similarities, not only due to their longevity in the exercise of power, but due to their ability to mobilize large masses.
Lula himself has already imitated Getúlio’s figure, posing with his hand stained with oil when pre-salt exploration began, repeating Getúlio’s gesture at the establishment of the . In my opinion, the main names in Brazilian republican political history are Getúlio Vargas and Lula.
Like mr. Do you see the military then and now, after this coup plot trial?
What stands out is the disqualification of the military personnel who orbited, including a disqualified soldier. Whether we like it or not, whether we agree with them or not, it would be impossible to deny the intellectual level of soldiers like Golbery do Couto e Silva and . Comparing them with the mediocrity of and becomes an insult. I believe that there is an urgent need to reform the curricula of our military schools, improving the training of the Armed Forces.
X-ray | Lira Neto, 61
He is a writer and journalist, with a degree in social communication from UFC (Federal University of Ceará) and a master’s degree in communication and semiotics from PUC-SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo). He published more than 20 books, including the biography “Getúlio”, consisting of three volumes. He is a four-time winner of the Jabuti Prize, in 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2014. He taught classes at Middlebury College, in Vermont, in the United States. He was a columnist for Sheet.
