FROM THE 1934 CONSTITUTION TO THE NEW STATE COUP: AUTHORITARIANISM AND POLITICAL DISPUTES IN TIMES OF LIBERAL-BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the authoritarian escalation between the years 1934 and 1937 and the process of political separation between Juracy Magalhães, governor of Bahia, and President Getúlio Vargas, which culminated with the coup of the Estado Novo, on November 10, 1937. During this period, the National Security Law was enacted, an authoritarian device in the context of the formal functioning of liberal-bourgeois institutions. After the events of November 1935, the State of War and State of Siege decrees, in practice, suspended the operation of the 1934 Constitution. On the other hand, there was a movement towards the elections that were supposed to take place in 1938. As a result of these facts, Vargas acted in pursuit of his opponents and former allies. In this line of action, he established a veiled intervention in Bahia, São Paulo and Pernambuco, after the appointment of executors of the state of war, on April 29, 1937. Juracy Magalhães started to be investigated and intimidated by Colonel Antônio Fernandes Dantas, the executor of the State of War in Bahia.