Vargas Declares the Estado Novo Dictatorship
A new constitution ends the states' autonomy and dissolves the political parties
Quick facts
- Declared
- 1937, by a self-coup and new constitution
- Name
- Estado Novo (New State)
- Effect on states
- State autonomy ended; appointed officials replaced governors
- Political parties
- Dissolved until 1944
What happened
In November 1937, weeks before a scheduled election he was barred from contesting, Vargas staged a self-coup, issued a new authoritarian constitution, and declared the Estado Novo, the New State. Brown University's Brazil: Five Centuries of Change records that Vargas created a dictatorial regime with his establishment of the Estado Novo. The Library of Congress country study describes what changed: under the Estado Novo, state autonomy ended, appointed federal officials replaced governors, and patronage flowed from the president downward, while all political parties were dissolved until 1944, limiting any organized opposition. The regime censored the press, jailed opponents, and built a corporatist state that also expanded labor rights and industry.
Why it matters
The Estado Novo was Brazil's first modern dictatorship, a nationalist, centralizing, corporatist regime that broke the power of the states and built the federal institutions and labor codes that outlasted Vargas himself. It also showed the pattern Brazil would repeat in 1964: a constitutional order suspended in the name of order and anti-communism, with real repression underneath the modernizing rhetoric.
How we know
The establishment of the Estado Novo as a dictatorial regime is documented verbatim in Brown University's Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, and its dissolution of the states and parties in the Library of Congress country study.
Sources
- Brown University Library, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change. Chapter 5: Building to a Dictatorship and World War II · Reputable sourcelibrary.brown.edu · The domain "library.brown.edu" is on our Reputable source registry.
- Library of Congress, Country Studies (Federal Research Division). Brazil: The Vargas Era (Country Studies) · General sourcecountrystudies.us · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineHistory of Brazil24 events · A land of hundreds of nations before 1500, the destination of nearly half of all enslaved Africans brought to the Americas, and the only monarchy the New World's republics ever toleratedView all →