Our Brazil Will Awake!: The Accao Integralista Brasileira and the Failed Quest for a Fascist Order in the 1930s (review)

Many are the merits of this small book, which provides an instructive, far-reaching and up-to-date analysis of Integralismo, the largest and most important fascist movement in Brazilian history and a legal political organization from 1932 to 1938. Despite the importance of rightwing political movements in twentieth-century Latin American history, academic work on the theme is still ruefully neglected when compared to that of the leftwing movements and parties. One hopes that this discrepancy will at least be reduced, and this book is a welcome contribution to this neglected area of study.

In order to present a history of the movement, the author employs up-to-date Brazilian and international bibliography. The author eschews a more in-depth examination of the extant historiography, but he does use a wealth of archival sources from Brazilian, German and British archives. This documentations richness renders minor inaccuracies irrelevant, such as the misspelling of some Brazilian words.

The author develops a coherent narrative that situates his subject within a broad context, punctuated by strategic digressions to discuss basic aspects of the integralista phenomenon, such as its social base, its limitations, and the differences and similarities between the fascist organizations in other countries. Although the rise of fascism has been a nearly universal phenomenon in the 1920s and 1930s, the author correctly argues that Brazilian Integralismo cannot be seen as a mere reproduction of European models, nor as a prolonged arm of European fascist regimes. This has been a common misconception, based on the perfunctory observation of formal similarities, such as the Italian and German fascist rituals and symbols.

Of course, there are many ideological similarities between fascisms of different countries—especially the belief that a totalitarian state governed by a strong leader would be more capable than liberal democracy of successfully promoting "national regeneration." However, whereas clear international connections between Integralismo and an admiration for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy did exist, these connections have never been comparable to the irrefutable submission that, for instance, the Brazilian Communist Party displayed in relation to Moscow during the same period.

Deeply linked to the Brazilian nationalist culture, Integralismo's followers defended the concept of brasilidade (Brazilianness). As a consequence of an extremely racially mixed society, the process of national rebirth would be achieved not through segregation, but through the fraternal unification of "the three races"—Indian, Black, and White. This assimilationist perspective was a source of problems, for example, for the Teuto-Brazilian community in the South, influenced by ideals of racial purity. Furthermore, the importance of the Catholic Church in Brazil repelled the "pagan nationalist" integralistas who have been present in other fascist experiences.

Klein correctly characterizes Integralismo as a mass political phenomenon—at the peak of the movement, its leaders claimed to have 1.3 million militants organized into some 2.000 local branches. Its membership consisted mostly of urban middle sectors, including a few workers. Despite their numbers, integralismo never became an electoral force proportional to the size of its membership.

Getúlio Vargas's 1937 imposition of the Estado Novo regime, a totalitarian dictatorship strongly backed by Brazil's armed forces, closed down political parties and ultimately vanquished integralismo. Many of the Estado Novo regime's practices mirrored integralista ones, such as an impassioned anticommunist rhetoric, but despite the explicit support integralist leaders offered initially to the Estado Novo regime, Vargas preferred to eliminate potential competitors. Consequently, the diminished combativeness of the integralista "national leader" Plínio Salgado and internal dissentions within the movement mitigated its strength. When a radical fraction of the integralist movement led a failed coup d'état in May 1938, it was extinguished without much resistance. After the end of World War II, Brazil underwent redemocratization and the integralist leader Plínio Salgado returned to politics...