The New State (Getulio Vargas)

Like the European Fascists, Vargas utilized fears over Communism to justify personal dictatorship. The fascist "Estado Novo" dictatorship, modeled after Salazar's regime of the same name in Brazil's mother country, finally materialized in 1937, when Vargas was forced to step down as president by January 1938 because his own 1934 constitution prohibited the president from succeeding himself. On 29 September 1937, Gen. Dutra, his rightist collaborator, presented "the Cohen Plan" that established a detailed plan for a Communist revolution. The Cohen Plan was a mere forgery concocted by the Integralists, but Vargas exploited it to have Dutra publicly demand a state of siege in a chain of events redolent of the Reichstag fire, which Hitler presented as a Communist conspiracy to justify a dictatorship. On November 10, Vargas, ruling by decree, then made a broadcast in which he stated his plans to assume dictatorial powers under a new constitution derived from European fascist models, thereby curtailing presidential elections (his ultimate objective) and dissolving congress.

Vargas, like Hitler in the Weimar Republic and Mussolini in the postwar Kingdom of Italy, consolidated dictatorial powers by acting within the established political system, not in a single coup d'état or revolution.

Under the Estado Novo, Vargas abolished opposition political parties, imposed rigid censorship, established a centralized police force, and filled prisons with political dissidents, while evoking a sense of nationalism that transcended class and bound the masses to the state.