Brazilian military junta of 1930
This oligarchy, between politicians from the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo, was broken when President Washington Luís nominated Júlio Prestes to succeed him.
Backed by military rebels, Minas Gerais responded by forming the Liberal Alliance with Paraíba and Rio Grande do Sul, which nominated Getúlio Vargas for the presidency.
When Prestes won the March 1930 election, the alliance claimed electoral fraud and orchestrated an armed revolution beginning on 3 October 1930.
Throughout the First Brazilian Republic, the presidency was interchanged every election between politicians of the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo,[1] in a system called "coffee and milk politics".
[2] The tradition was broken in 1929 when incumbent President Washington Luís, of São Paulo, nominated Júlio Prestes, another man from the same state, as his successor rather than exchanging the position with a politician from Minas Gerais.
With the support of the tenentes, they formed the Liberal Alliance and nominated Getúlio Vargas, governor of Rio Grande do Sul, for president.
Their plans included agricultural schools, a national Labor Code, a minimum wage, and industrial training centers; many of their promises would be realized after Vargas took power in 1930.
[7] Prestes promised to continue Luís's economic policies, lower taxes, raise the salaries of government officials, update army equipment and defend industry.
Despite the assassination having been the result of both a romantic and local political ordeal, Pessoa's death was the catalyst that led the opposition to take up arms.
[3] The federal government received backlash for the assassination, widely perceived to be a political act, and in Congress, Rio Grande do Sul Deputy Lindolfo Collor asked, "Mr. President, what have you done to the governor of Paraíba [Pessoa]?
The Revolution of 1930, as it was called, began in the states of the Liberal Alliance and then moved toward Rio de Janeiro from north, south, and west.
"[20] However, Tasso Fragoso told General João de Deus Mena Barreto, inspector of the 1st Group of Military Regions, that a rebellion in Rio seemed imminent after he attended mass for a soldier killed in Paraíba.
Mena Barreto was being urged by his Chief of Staff Colonel Bertoldo Klinger, on behalf of a group of young officers, to intervene to end the hostilities in a military coup favorable to revolutionaries.
Tasso Fragoso, Mena Barreto, and their associates convened on the night of 23 October at Fort Copacabana to make plans for the ousting, having received assurance of support from the military police and the outlying barracks at Vila Militar.
Leme told Mangabeira that he heard that Fort Copacabana ordered the president leave by 11 a.m., and, as a warning, they would begin shooting blank rounds after 9 a.m. Luís decided to evacuate his wife and other women in Guanabara Palace, his residence, to their friends' house in Cosme Velho.
Tasso Fragoso later explained, "No one wanted his son to put on a uniform and die fighting a man frankly divorced from the common interest.
[26] That afternoon, Cardinal Leme, calling on the president at Tasso Fragoso's request, told him the generals had established their provisional government junta on the first floor of the Guanabara Palace.
Noting the ugly mood of the crowd, Leme said Fort Copacabana would be the safest place for the president, and he was able to get the generals to agree that he would be allowed to set sail for Europe without delay.
[34] Among other measures, the junta dismissed the reserves called by Luís during the last days of his government, demilitarized the South Minas Gerais Railway Network, authorized banking operations to resume, opened a line of credit to counter yellow fever, and replaced some military commanders.
[36] While talks were being held with Aranha, the junta contradicted Klinger's earlier statement and promised to hand over the government to Vargas.
[31][41] In a speech to mark the transition, Tasso Fragoso proclaimed the military intervened with the hope that "Brazilians cease spilling blood on behalf of a cause which was not endorsed by the national conscience.
In 1930, Army and Navy commanders found themselves cast in a position which was to become increasingly familiar in subsequent Brazilian history: the role of final arbiter in domestic politics.
