Cohen Plan
The Cohen Plan (Portuguese: Plano Cohen) was a document forged by the Brazilian military with the aim of establishing the Estado Novo dictatorship in November 1937. A conjunction between antisemitism and anti-communism in Brazilian politics, it was fraudulently attributed to the Communist International, which allegedly planned to overthrow the government through strikes, the burning of public buildings and popular demonstrations that would end in looting, chaos, and the murder of authorities. To introduce the fraud, it was "discovered" by the Armed Forces, immediately used to label the political opposition as communists, and then to legitimize the 1937 coup d'état. With the approach of the presidential elections scheduled for 1938, the absence of a candidate that pleased the government and with the impossibility of extending his term, president Getúlio Vargas and general Eurico Gaspar Dutra began to plan a coup d'état; the coup would only work if it appeared to be a matter of national necessity.
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