Cohen Plan
A conjunction between antisemitism and anti-communism in Brazilian politics, it was fraudulently attributed to the Communist International, which allegedly planned to overthrow the government through strikes, the burning of public buildings and popular demonstrations that would end in looting, chaos, and the murder of authorities.
He denounced the fraud that had taken place eight years earlier, claiming that the Cohen Plan had been handed over to the Army General Staff by captain Olímpio Mourão Filho, at the time head of the secret service of the Brazilian Integralist Action.
By analogy, the conspiracy surrounding the Cohen Plan was equated with events such as the scare campaign launched on the eve of the 1964 coup d'état and continues to be mentioned in analysis of contemporary Brazilian politics.
[6] As part of a set of conspiracy theories based on a Manichean view of reality – including the belief in "diabolical forces bent on doing evil"[7] – and possibly as a reaction to modernity and the anxieties and fears it unleashed,[8] since at least the 19th century, conservative currents began to accuse the Jews of being "instigators of social disturbances and revolutions".
[9] In parallel with the rise of Nazism and Fascism, and largely because of the action of these groups, these events were followed by an immense antisemitic and anti-Communist wave and the emergence of a myth of the "Jewish-Communist conspiracy" that quickly spread.
[12][13] United around this conspiracy, and using a process of demonizing the left,[14] Germany, Italy and Japan established the Anti-Comintern Pact in opposition to "democratic and Marxist international ideas [which gave] demonstrations of hatred and discord".
[20] Parallel to the spread of the Jewish-Communist conspiracy myth, in the 1920s and 1930s Brazil underwent structural changes and received a large contingent of immigrants, through whom different avant-garde ideological currents arrived; among them came European workers with an old union experience and a more developed partisan culture, among them communist militants, including some of Jewish origin.
[21] In order to stay in power, Vargas forged alliances with the Brazilian military and the integralists, created mechanisms to exalt his own image, and sought to demonstrate that the country was permanently exposed to external forces, especially a "red threat".
[23] With the approval of a new National Security Law on 4 April 1935, which provided for crimes with imprecise definitions, in order to allow practically any manifestation that displeased the government to be framed, Vargas began to arrest and torture members of the organized working class[26] and, finally, he closed down the National Liberation Alliance (ANL), whose members, upon being arbitrarily excluded from the political processes, began to plan a revolt under the leadership of the party's communist leader, Luis Carlos Prestes.
[28] Media censorship, loss of civil rights, arbitrary arrests, deportations, torture and the murder of opponents multiplied, while society's fear of supposed enemies and the figure of Vargas as "the savior of the homeland" were reinforced.
[29] In its final phase, this same process involved the Cohen Plan, an eloquent example of the intersection between Brazilian antisemitism and anti-communism,[30][31] which functioned as the "finishing of the anti-communist climate":[29] it culminated in the coup on 10 November 1937, which closed the Congress, canceled elections and kept Vargas in power until 1945.
[43] Experts have highlighted the numerous commonalities between the Cohen Plan and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which are known to have been translated and first published in Portuguese by Gustavo Barroso,[44][45] one of the leaders of the Brazilian Integralist Action.
[48] Mourão then wrote a document containing a fictitious plan, constructed with ideas taken from unrelated sources, some admittedly false[50] and others not so much, as in the case of an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes about the ephemeral taking of the power by the Hungarian communists led by Béla Kun in the aftermath of World War I.
[55] The agreement was clear: Vargas would arm and equip the military and build a national steel complex "in exchange for support to extend his presidency with dictatorial powers that would eliminate politics".
[17][58] Dutra had participated in a coup attempt early in his military career, during the Vaccine Revolt,[59] and at that time he was a trusted man of General Góis Monteiro, whom he had replaced as minister by his appointment.
[47] Because of it, the National Congress had declared a state of war, which had been invariably renewed since April of the previous year and allowed Vargas to govern by decree, that is, without passing through the democratic control of the Legislative Power.
[52] Among the few who opposed the government's plans were Otávio Mangabeira, Oscar Penteado Stevenson, Aureliano Leite and Prado Kelly; the presidential request was approved in the Chamber of Deputies by 138 votes against 52, and in the Federal Senate by 23 against five.
[70] Strengthened, the Brazilian Integralist Action began to be exhibited throughout the country and, on November 4, it held a huge march in Rio de Janeiro with thousands of uniformed members, which was attended by the president and several of his military ministers.
[53] Shortly afterwards, on 10 November, with the support of several leaders who had participated in the farce of the Cohen Plan, Getúlio authorized the Army to surround and forcibly close the National Congress in Rio de Janeiro.
[70] Ironically, the Estado Novo was essentially characterized by the crimes denounced in the Cohen Plan: "social control, domination of the press and the senses, violence and repression, despotism and the implementation of a corporatist ideology masked by the idea of a new Brazil".
[75] While the Estado Novo lasted, the veracity of the document was never publicly contested by the authorities of the dictatorship, although certain officers of the Armed Forces, such as Eduardo Gomes, are reported to have expressed doubts in this regard.
[70] The general, however, disclaimed all blame and transferred responsibility for writing the document to captain Olímpio Mourão Filho, who at the time had been head of the secret service of Brazilian Integralist Action.
[79] Mourão, who would later become general and president of the Superior Military Court, would also be noted for commanding the troops that marched from Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro, triggering the 1964 coup d'état.
[81] The communist threat "was posed by the institution as a real danger" that threatened the country and the very existence of the Army as an organization,[14] and Góis Monteiro and Dutra introduced a series of changes in the structure of the Armed Forces in order to get rid of those that did not satisfy their ideological demands.
[82] At the same time, general José Pessoa transformed the content of the education provided to the new soldiers, in order to produce a "homogeneous mentality" within the troops and eliminate the diversity of political conceptions.
[83][84] Communism – a notion that, in conservative discourse, was re-signified to include all opponents[85] – came to be presented as a "cancer, malignant disease, which led to any body's death" and, in this line, left-wing soldiers began to be seen as "political monsters" and potential traitors.
[87] The constant repetition of the existence of a lurking threat – for example, through political-military documents produced by the Armed Forces and "permeated with the 'red danger'" – continues to allow the institution to lead the troops to self-police against all kinds of discordant thinking.
[83] This idea of a "surgical" military intervention, capable of carrying out an economic nationalism to develop the country, was at the heart of the Armed Forces' action during the 1964 coup (whose dictatorship ended up lasting twenty years) and has remained alive ever since.
[83] Due to its role in using the idea of the "red threat" of communism as an instrument of domination by terror, that is, as a pretext for putting into practice measures that erode the rule of law and that eventually allowed the President of the Republic to execute a self-coup d'état allegedly with the aim of avoiding a dictatorship established by its opponents, the conspiracy around the Cohen Plan has been mentioned as a precursor example of fake news[89][90] and a false narrative on the part of the top military leaders.
[80] By analogy, the conspiracy around the Cohen Plan has been equated with events such as the campaign to scare the population that was launched on the eve of the 1964 coup[91][92] and continues to be mentioned in analysis of contemporary Brazilian politics.
