São Paulo Revolt of 1924

The São Paulo Revolt of 1924 (Portuguese: Revolta Paulista), also called the Revolution of 1924 (Revolução de 1924), Movement of 1924 (Movimento de 1924) or Second 5th of July (Segundo 5 de Julho) was a Brazilian conflict with characteristics of a civil war, initiated by tenentist rebels to overthrow the government of president Artur Bernardes. From the city of São Paulo on 5 July, the revolt expanded to the interior of the state and inspired other uprisings across Brazil. The urban combat ended in a loyalist victory on 28 July. The rebels' withdrawal, until September, prolonged the rebellion into the Paraná Campaign.

The conspiratorial nucleus behind the revolt consisted of army officers, veterans of the Copacabana Fort revolt, in 1922, who were joined by military personnel from the Public Force of São Paulo, sergeants and civilians, all enemies of the political system of Brazil's Old Republic. They chose the retired general Isidoro Dias Lopes as their commander and planned a nationwide revolt, starting with the occupation of São Paulo in a few hours, cutting off one of the arms of the oligarchies that dominated the country in "coffee with milk" politics. The plan fell apart: there were fewer supporters than expected and the loyalists resisted in the city's center until 8 July, when governor Carlos de Campos withdrew to the Guaiaúna rail station, on the outskirts of the city. The federal government concentrated much of the country's firepower in the city, with a numerical advantage of five to one, and began to reconquer it by the working-class neighborhoods to the east and south of the city's center, under the command of general Eduardo Sócrates.

São Paulo, the largest industrial park in the country, had its factories paralyzed by the fight, the most intense ever fought within a Brazilian city. There were food shortages and, in the power vacuum, the looting of stores began. The federal government launched an indiscriminate artillery bombardment against the city, which caused heavy damage to houses, industries and the inhabitants. Civilians were the majority of those killed and a third of the city's inhabitants became refugees. São Paulo's economic elite, led by José Carlos de Macedo Soares, president of the Commercial Association, did their best to preserve their properties and order in the city. Fearing a social revolution, the elites influenced the leaders of the revolt to distance themselves from militant workers, such as the anarchists, who had offered their support to the rebels; Macedo Soares and others also unsuccessfully tried to broker a ceasefire.

With no prospect of success in battle, the rebels still had an escape route into their occupied territory from Campinas to Bauru, but it was about to be cut off by loyalist victories in the Sorocaba axis. The revolutionary army escaped the imminent siege and moved to the banks of the Paraná River. After an unsuccessful invasion of southern Mato Grosso (the Battle of Três Lagoas), they entrenched themselves in western Paraná, where they joined rebels from Rio Grande do Sul to form the Miguel Costa-Prestes Column. The federal government reestablished the state of emergency and intensified political repression, foreshadowing the apparatus later used by the Estado Novo and the military dictatorship; in São Paulo, the Department of Political and Social Order (Deops) was created. Despite the scale of the fighting and the destruction it left, the uprising earned the nickname of "Forgotten Revolution" and does not have public commemorations equivalent to those held for the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932.