Editing Tenentism (section)

==Background==

The first decades of the 20th century saw marked economic and social change in Brazil. With industrialization on the rise, the [[Federal government of Brazil|federal government]] — dominated by the coffee oligarchs and the old order of [[Milk coffee politics|''café com leite'' politics]] and ''[[Coronelism|coronelismo]]'' — came under threat from the political aspirations of new urban groups: the proletariat, government and [[white-collar worker]]s, merchants, bankers, and industrialists. In parallel, growing prosperity encouraged a rapid rise of a new working class of Southern and Eastern European immigrants who contributed to the growth of [[Trade union|trade unionism]], [[Anarchism in Brazil|anarchism]], and [[Socialism in Brazil|socialism]] in Brazil.<ref>Brazil: Poppino, Rollie E.; the Land and People: The Land and the People 2nd edition p. 253; Oxford University Press, 1973 ASIN B001P7H4M4</ref> In the post-[[World War I]] period, Brazil saw its first wave of general strikes and the establishment of the [[Brazilian Communist Party|Communist Party]] in 1922.<ref>Ameringer, Charles D.; Political Parties of the Americas, 1980s to 1990s: Canada, Latin America, and the West Indies p. 123; Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992 {{ISBN|0-313-27418-5}}</ref>

A new class of junior army officers ({{langx|pt|tenentes|links=no}}) had emerged. They were trained in European war standards and believed themselves superior to their senior officers who still held antiquated ideas of the past. In addition, various senior officers had become complacent or sided with the government and its political structure, which sparked criticism from the ''tenentes''.<ref>[[Frank McCann|McCann, Frank D.]]; ''Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889–1937'' p. 261; Stanford University Press, 2004; {{ISBN|0-8047-3222-1}}</ref>

Meanwhile, the divergence of interests between the coffee oligarchs and the burgeoning, dynamic urban sectors was intensifying. According to historian [[Benjamin Keen]], the task of transforming society "fell to the rapidly growing urban bourgeois groups, and especially to the middle class, which began to voice even more strongly its discontent with the rule of the corrupt rural oligarchies".<ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Latin America |last=Keen |first=Benjamin |year=1996 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Co. |isbn=0-395-74455-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/historyoflatinam00keen_0/page/349 349] |url=https://archive.org/details/historyoflatinam00keen_0|url-access=registration }}</ref> In contrast, despite a wave of general strikes in the post-war years, the labour movement remained small and weak,<ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Organized Labor in Brazil |last=Jackson Alexander |first=Robert  |author2=Parker, Eldon M  |year=2003 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=0-275-97738-2 |page=2 }}</ref> lacking ties to the peasantry, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian population. As a result, rather disparate and disjointed social reform movements cropped up in the 1920s.