Brazilian Integralism

Brazilian Integralism (Portuguese: integralismo) was a political movement in Brazil, created in October 1932. Founded and led by Plínio Salgado, a literary figure somewhat famous for his participation in the 1922 Modern Art Week, the movement had adopted some characteristics of European mass movements of those times, specifically of Italian fascism, but distanced itself from Nazism because Salgado himself did not support racism. He believed that every person of every race should unite under the Integralist flag. Despite the movement's slogan "Union of all races and all peoples", members and leaders like Gustavo Barroso held anti-Semitic views.^[1] The name of the party created to support its doctrine was Brazilian Integralist Action (Portuguese: Ação Integralista Brasileira, AIB). The reference to Integralism mirrored a traditionalist movement in Portugal, the Lusitanian Integralism. For its symbol, the AIB used a flag with a white disk on a royal blue background, with an uppercase sigma (Σ) in its center. (In mathematics, sigma indicates "discrete summation" of any given number of terms, following a set of rules)