Da formação ao desafio das urnas: o PTB e seus adversários nas eleições estaduais de 1947 no Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The foundation of the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB) – “Brazilian Labor Party” – deeply marked the politics in Rio Grande do Sul from 1945 to 1964. With bipolarity tradition the gaucha politics of those decades was defined by the conflict between a more progressive posture, represented by the PTB, and a more conservative one, leaded by the Partido Social Democrático (PSD) – “Social Democratic Party”. The present study intends to analyze the role PTB played at the gubernatorial elections of 1947, based on aspects from Pierre Bourdieu’s political field theory. This study also seeks understanding the initial trajectory and the political capital the party accumulated at that time. The sources were periodic newspapers, articles, interviews and declarations of leading parties and a set of letters traded between them as well. A possible contribution of this study might be proving the importance of that particular political dispute had in the foundation process of the “gaucho” PTB mainly for being such a propi