The Revolution's main goal was to press the provisional government headed by Getúlio Vargas to adopt and then abide by a new Constitution, since Júlio Prestes was kept from taking office.

Counting on the support of the political elites of two other powerful states, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, the politicians from São Paulo expected a quick war.

In spite of its military defeat, some of the movement's main demands were granted by Vargas afterwards: the appointment of a non-military state governor, the election of a Constituent Assembly, and the enactment of a new Constitution in 1934.

These forces were reinforced by the Força Pública Paulista (the military police of São Paulo state), and the MMDC militias.

[2] In fact, according to authors such as Hilton, São Paulo equipped some 40 battalions of volunteers, but García de Gabiola states that he had identified up to 80 of them, of some 300 men each.

[3] At the end, taking into account that in the São Paulo state armory's there were only between 15,000 and 29,000 rifles depending on the source, the Paulistas were never able to arm more than 35,000 men maximum.

[5] Brazil equipped approximately 100,000 men, but taking into account that a third of this amount never went to the front (they were kept to protect the rearguards and for security purposes in the other states), their numerical superiority was of some 2 to 1.

[6] The main front was initially the eastern Paraíba Valley that led to Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil.

The Revolution plays a key role in the setting of Peter Fleming's book Brazilian Adventure, an offbeat portrayal by a British man caught in the midst of the fighting.