IRSH 62 (2017), Special Issue, pp. 165–190 doi:10.1017/S0020859017000608 © 2018 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis World War II and Brazilian Workers: Populism at the Intersections between National and Global Histories A LEXANDRE F ORTES Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro Department of History Av Governador Roberto da Silveira S/N Nova Iguaçu, RJ, Brazil E-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: This article argues that World War II played a very important, and generally underestimated role in the rise of Brazilian populism. It starts with an overview of recent trends in the debates on the use of the concept of populism in Brazil, with particular attention to works that stress the years from 1941 to 1945 as a critical juncture. Secondly, it explores the connections between war effort, changes in labor regulations, and workers’ political participation in different contexts. Finally, it summarizes how the economic and social effects produced by the involvement of Brazil in the War led to profound and accelerated changes in the nature of the regime of Getúlio Vargas and in the role of workers in Brazilian politics. Populism is one of the most controversial terms in our political vocabulary. Used to describe a broad range of phenomena and bearing strong pejorative undertones, numerous scholars have questioned the concept. Attempts to discard it, however, have been in vain. The term re-emerges with each inflection of the global political scene, whether on the left, with the election of progressive governments in South America in the first decade of the twenty-first century,1 or on the right, in our current moment, epitomized by the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.2 Although the transnational character of these “populist waves” is self- evident, analyses of them generally echo the nationalist logic inherent in the 1.