Brazilian Integralism - Crackdown and Legacy

Crackdown and Legacy

When Vargas established full dictatorial powers under the Estado Novo in 1937, he turned against the movement. Although AIB favored Vargas' hard right turn, Salgado was overly ambitious, with overt presidential aspirations that threatened Vargas' grip on power. In 1938, the Integralists made a last attempt at achieving power, by attacking the Guanabara Palace during the night, but police and army troops arrived at the last minute, and the ensuing gunfight ended with around twenty casualties. This attempt was called the Integralist Pajama Putsch.

AIB disintegrated after that failure in 1938, and some years later Salgado founded the Party of Popular Representation (PRP), which maintained the ideology of Integralism, but without the uniforms, salutes, signals, and signs. The various political leaderships raised among Integralistm dispersed into various ideological positions during subsequent political struggles, including many of the former members of the partcipants in the 1964 military coup that was to overthrow President João Goulart, as well as Goulart's Foreign Minister Santiago Dantas, the Catholic bishop D. Hélder Câmara, and the Brazilian populist leader (and Goulart's brother-in-law) Leonel Brizola. Today, there are very small and powerless groups in Brazil which uphold the strict integralist ideology.