BETWEEN LOS ANGELES AND RIO JANEIRO: the fight against fascism in a transnational perspective

: The article presents an analysis of the antifascist struggle from the discourses present in the Hollywood Now newspaper of Los Angeles and in the journal Diretrizes do Rio de Janeiro, both of the year 1938. We try to show the positions of antifascist intellectuals of the United States and Brazil by using the press for the dissemination of their ideas and political projects. In this aspect, the article demonstrates that the debates took on a transnational dimension, connecting ideas that circulated at a global level. In Los Angeles, the political action of writers and filmmakers around the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League was important for the intensification of the anti-fascist struggle, while in Rio de Janeiro the positioning of the editors of the magazine Diretrizes expanded the debate on pan- Americanism and the fight against fascism

During the 1930s fascism became a global phenomenon, inspiring many political models adopted by governments around the world. The phenomenon of the rise of fascist regimes in Europe happened amid the tragic results of the capitalist world, a direct reflection of the crisis of 1929, and the uncertainties of communism. With the anti-liberal, anti-communist and nationalist discourse, led by the success of Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy, a large number of supporters of this ideology emerged, as well as movements against it. The anti-fascist struggle was not exclusive to the leftist groups. At various moments there was a convergence between the political movements interested in the fight against fascism, engaged mainly in the groups of intellectuals.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the circulation of ideas of the antifascist movements in the United States and Brazil in the late 1930s from the Hollywood Now pages, newspaper in Los Angeles, and the Diretrizes magazine from Rio de Janeiro. Our sources for research are the early 1938 editions of both periodicals, a period in which debates over the Nazifascist threat intensify with the annexation of Austria by the Reich.
In addition to comparing the two journals, we adopted Transnational History as a methodological perspective. This choice inspires us not only to look for the exchange of materials things and capital between societies, but especially exchanges in the world of ideas. In the argument of American historian Barbara Weinstein, with Transnational History.
The idea is not to change from the cultural sphere to the political sphere; On the contrary, the argument is the impossibility of understanding political developments without a more careful consideration of cultural exchanges, and the role of culture in inter-American projects (whether promoted by the Americans, by Latin Americans, or by those who do not have a point of origin That we can clearly identify). 1 In this sense, Transnational History has a strong connection with Cultural History, since it is proposed and just and beyond the more traditional methods of Political History when looking at issues involving as global interactions, Transnational history examines units that spread and filter across national boundaries, units that are ever larger than the nation-state. International models have guided diplomatic history, military history and related fields; the focus of his state is less convincing for non-loyalist historians, which partly explains the embrace of the transnational method by social and cultural historians. 2 In this aspect, we are interested in observing the exchanges between the societies involved, trying to understand how these networks extrapolate the national spaces, creating a global debate, exemplified in the anti-fascist movements of the United States and Brazil. This is a way of problematizing ideas much more than frontiers. 3 In the Americas, the debate on fascism penetrated all spheres, politics, economics, or culture, and gained strength in so far as the news of the geopolitical intentions of the governments of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy arrived more often through the press. The discussions about the meanings of fascism gain diverse interpretations by who are produced and read the contents.
Another contributory factor was the large number of political exiles who looked for refuge in the American continent during the 1930s and 1940s. Politicians, intellectuals, and artists against of fascism were persecuted in their home countries, creating a wave of immigration with the purpose to escape of persecution in the fascist areas of Europe. In the first place, often France, but with a clear possibility of the Nazi advance in that country, the American continent became the main destination of exile in the 1930s and 1940s. Thus, a broad network was formed of antifascist activities in the United States and Latin America with a circulation of magazines, newspapers and other periodicals in which the experiences of the authoritarian governments from Italy and Germany were constantly attacked.

Diretrizes magazine: Pan-Americanism as a weapon against fascism
For Adrés Bisso, Latin American antifascism was an ideological discourse, attending to specific political interests. According to him it was an appropriation, for local and continental use, of a European discourse. 4 The Historian Angela Meirelles de Oliveira argues that the antifascist struggle in Brazil was not a complete appropriation of international models but rather a resignification of this struggle, very influenced by the questions about "nationalism" that had been present since the 1920s. 5 . In this way, the antifascist struggle in Latin America succeeded in adding several social fields and all the ideological diversity that appeared during the first decades of the twentieth century.  The term "intellectual" here is linked to all those who carry out activities in the field of writing and the arts, and thereby have become involved in the political struggles of the period.
With this, a significant number of intellectuals have withdrawn from the national public space, either because they fled to neighboring countries, such as Argentina and Uruguay, or because they were arrested on charges of association with communist activities. Therefore, the anti-fascist struggle of this period was marked by sporadic publications in newspapers or other existing journals, without maintaining their own or formal organizations.
Even with the repression and censorship increasingly present after the coup of 1937, which resulted in the formation of Estado Novo, politically marked anti-fascist publications once again circulated in the Brazilian scene. An example of this is the periodicals Diretrizes, Cultura and Mensário Democrático, both from Rio de Janeiro. The Diretrizes magazazine, object of our study, was founded by Antonio Jose Azevedo Amaral, journalist and supporter of Estado Novo, who invited the journalist, Samuel Weiner, and both began to edit it. Six months after the launch of Diretrizes Azevedo Amaral did not compress with editorial directions and left the magazine.
His team consisted of thought-provoking intellectuals such as Moacyr Werneck de Castro, the then Communist Carlos Lacerda, and other members of the Communist Party. Samuel invited several writers such as Graciliano Ramos, Astrogildo Pereira, Adalgiza Nery, Jorge Amado, Octávio Malta, Rachel de Queiróz among others to form the team of his magazine, which was submitted to the previous censorship of the DIP. His goal was to fight against fascism and Nazism. 8 The main justification for maintaining these publications, even in a political scenery, marked by censorship, were the initiatives of the Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB), a fascist movement, which attempted a coup against the Getúlio Vargas government in 1938. In addition, although economic relations between Brazil and Germany were very intense during the 1930s, there was a strong approximation in the economic and cultural relations between Brazil and the United States. In the first issue of the Diretrizes magazine the international political framework was at the center of the discussions, which would make a strong mark of the other editions. In the editorial, journalist Azevedo Amaral presented the publication's intentions, openly attacking fascism and Plinio Salgado's attempts at the AIB, citing those who followed him as "social elements that systematically refrain from thinking." Still according to Azevedo Amaral The failure of this initiative and the more or less simultaneous failure of other formations also inspired by the fascist models that were beginning to be imported into Brazil served to strengthen the general conviction about the impossibility of acclimatizing in our midst currents of this nature. 10 The articles in the first issue of Diretrizes followed the same line as Azevedo Amaral's critics. There were several collaborators linked to communism, and at the moment there was a consensus in the direction of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) that an approach with the Vargas Government was necessary, in order to strengthen the fight against fascism. Rubem Braga maintained a monthly column in the magazine, that although never affiliated to the PCB was married with a communist militant, Zora Seljan. In his article, "The Man on the Street," he dealt ironically with the failed attempt of the Integralist coup: They wanted the monopoly of patriotism. They also monopolized honor. In the vague hours they also monopolized, God. And when they had nothing to do, they monopolized the family. They were interesting, and amusing. But then they started to get bucks. They wanted to kill everyone. No one wanted to die. The Doctor. Getulio Vargas was very upset. Came the Caraval. On Tuesday, the day of the holidays, the men wanted to play a game. It was not right. Democrats, Phenians, and Devil Lieutenants exist for many years. The last-minute competitor did not get anything. It's natural. We like Carnival like that, once a year. But putting a club in the government was not right. After the Carnival ended, the government thought there was no reason to continue the club. 11 In the late 1930s there was pressure from the intellectuals and the Brazilian press for the distancing of the Vargas government from Nazi Germany. At the same time, the institutional relations between Brazil and the United States only increased during the period. More articles appeared in the press, praising the policies developed by the government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, valuing democracy and Pan-Americanism. In this sense, the Diretrizes magazine was one of the spokesmen in favor of the approach with the United States. In the article "The Brazil, within the limits of its resources and faithful to the postulates of Pan-Americanism, for which it has always guided its foreign policy, stands alongside the United States and other nations of America in defending this continent and humanity against harmful action of the retrograde and obscurantist forces, who oppose the establishment of an international juridical order and seek to bring civilization back to warlike barbarism. 13 This sense of need to combat fascism having as allies the Americans discussed in the According to the text of the Diretrizes, Nazism was also beginning to pose a danger to Brazil. Initiatives to expand the German Empire could target colonies of Germanic immigrants in various parts of the world, including in Brazil.
The tortuous process of interventions to create critical situations in other countries is already being practiced and could very well be analyzed in the preparation of movements that would serve as a prelude to the organization of Nazi "small homelands". 15 At the end of the text is reinforced the thesis present throughout the magazine that it was necessary to work in the perspective of "American solidarity" in order to show the Reich and other fascist forces that there would be cohesion between the American nations to prevent the "Pan-Germanism" hit the mainland, as well as a reflection on articles in the German press that made clear the intentions of Nazism's "hostile sentiment against Brazil."

Hollywood Now and an Anti-Nazi League in Los Angeles
The United States underwent profound transformations in the 1930s, most notably with the start of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration in 1933. From New Deal, the largescale banking reliance began to recover from the great crisis of 1929, unemployment began to Decrease Significantly, as well as some laws that have improved as conditions of ongoing work in force in the period. Unlike its predecessors, Roosevelt left the big stick policy and adopted a "good neighbor policy" with the countries of Central and South America. In relation to Europe, the United States, they tried to stay away from the conflicts of the continent as much as possible.
However, the period was also marked by the formation of state surveillance agencies, mainly as cultural, political and cultural manifestations of the North American population. According to historian Alexander Stephan In this period as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "great police government" and his desire to centralize mega agencies The FBI formation with an ideological influence of its director, John Edgar Hoover, based on xenophobia and anticommunism. 16 Hoover had extensive experience in the Department of Justice during World War I, when he was responsible for monitoring how foreign activities in the United States, especially the Germans. From the outset, Hoover assumed the role of "citizen protector" against foreign threats, with a strong anti-communist and anti-fascist discourse.
The acceptance of the president was very large among a population. Roosevelt was re-  In addition to the news, the Holllywood Now editorial was a call from the Los Angeles intellectual community to attend events hosted by HANL. Thomas Mann did not integrate HANL, but his contribution, as in many other anti-Nazi movements during his exile in the United States, was always remembered, especially for the prestige he maintained in America. This is clear in the writing of the matter when mentioning it: Dr. Mann's subject at the Shrine Auditorium will be "The Coming Victory of Democracy," in which he will express his deep belief in the enduring qualities of the democratic system as opposed to Nazism and Fascism. The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League is assisting the Modern Frum in preparations for the lecture. 18 In the 1930s, the city of Los Angeles, mainly for the activities of the Hollywood film industry, was famous for the reputation of pioneering progressive politics and strong involvement in the fight against fascism in Europe. The American historian Ehrhard Bahr argues that this was one of the main attractions for the coming of political exiles to the region. 19 This cultural effervescence, of the arts and the global political debate surrounding the fascist threats in Europe, made more and more intellectuals involved in the political struggle. tending such an overwhelming reception to this great and corageous German, renders to itself the very highest honor." 20 In this Bruno Frank's speech is also exposed an appeal of gratitude and even same union between the Germans in exile with the Americans. The HANL was a reflection of this, for it was basically formed by these two subjects, both in the anti-fascist struggle.
In the April 9, 1938 issue, the Hollywood Now pages featured an upbeat and highly successful speech at the event where Thomas Mann gave his talk at the Shrine auditorium.
Pictures of filmmakers, as if participating in the anti-fascist movement, and a few articles mocking Austria's subservience to Adolf Hitler created the anti-Nazi theme for newspaper. In addition, there were endnotes celebrating the various donations received for HANL, without naming the donors, corroborating the thesis that the anti-fascist activities in Los Angeles were exercised by a large and heterogeneous group. The involvement of various sectors of Los Angeles society with HANL advocates and published in the weekly Hollywood Now newspaper marked the beginning of anti-Fascist and Nazi movements in Southern California. It is also important to remember that the Shrine auditorium, where most of HANL's private and public events took place, as the very foundation of the group, belongs to an organization of Masonic orders, in which several of the artists, writers and intellectuals involved were members.

Final considerations
The anti-fascist struggle was much broader than the publication of newspapers and magazines in order to expose and spread ideas. In this sense, we can not disentangle the role of the struggle of intellectuals from a broader context, involving diplomacy, political parties, government decisions and various other aspects of national and international aspects. It is difficult to evaluate the real influence of the two journals studied in the formation of public opinions in relation to the struggles that were proposed. However, it is notorious that this movement of which the editorials of Hollywood Now and Diretrizes magaznine shared, antifascism, grew very much in the late 1930s, mainly with the worsening of the international context with the beginning of World War II.
The circulation of these ideas has transcended boundaries, without necessarily going through state issues. The mention of the anti-fascist struggles in the United States became a recurrent discursive element in Latin America, reinforcing in many moments the idea that the country was the safe place where "modernity and democracy rested". Even among the foreign collaborators of the Hollywood Now newspaper, this ideal of "free America" was present, exalting the culture of freedom they experienced in the "New World." Corroborating this, the Pan-American ideas advocated in the Diretrizes magazine advocated the alliance between Brazil And the United States, not only in the political arena but also in cultural issues.
The press was the instrument of diffusion of the antifascist ideas, exemplifying how it represents an important form of amplification of political ideas that realize interventions in the reality. In this sense, the brief analysis of two periodicals from different countries in the year 1938 reinforces the premise that the exchange of ideas generates the strengthening of these movements in the national contexts and also contributes to the increase of the capacity of international mobilization.