Different left-wing groups promoted an armed struggle against the Brazilian military dictatorship between 1968 and 1972, the most severe phase of the regime. Despite its resistance aspect, the majority of the groups that participated in the armed struggle aimed to achieve a socialist revolution in Brazil, inspired by the Chinese and Cuban Revolution. Although some actions were held between 1965 and 1967, the confrontations deepened after the enactment of Institutional Act Number Five (AI-5) in 1968. Many groups joined the armed struggle, including the National Liberation Action, the National Liberation Command, the 8th October Revolutionary Movement, the Communist Party of Brazil, the Popular Revolutionary Vanguard, and the Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard.
The revolutionary organizations aimed to start rural guerrilla warfare, but were also notable for their urban actions. Considered acts of armed propaganda for the revolution, the operations helped raise funds to unleash guerrilla warfare in the countryside and sustain the clandestine infrastructure of the organizations. The urban guerrillas, classified as terrorism by the dictatorial government and the Brazilian press, initially surprised the state's repressive apparatus, which quickly perfected and professionalized its combat against the rebels. The military high command established a police and bureaucratic apparatus based on espionage, intelligence gathering and special operations aimed at capturing and interrogating political opponents of the regime through the systematic use of torture.
Despite their initial success, the revolutionary organizations faced social isolation, which worsened after the repression and disinformation campaign perpetrated by some sectors of the dictatorship. Paramilitaries linked to federal government authorities carried out false flag operations against civilians and the military with the aim of eroding popular support for the rebels and justifying the deepening of authoritarianism. The armed actions in the cities were short-lived. Among all the organizations involved in the armed struggle, only the Communist Party of Brazil managed to effectively promote rural guerrilla warfare. The dismantling of the Araguaia guerrillas in 1974 marked the total collapse of the armed struggle in Brazil at the cost of hundreds of deaths, exiles and disappearances during the dictatorship.
Background
PCB hegemony Until 1964, the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) was the hegemonic force on the political left in Brazil. Although it was illegal, it experienced its peak during the democratic period from 1945 to 1964. At the time, the party had many members and its ideas influenced the political and trade union struggle and part of the intellectual elite. The PCB's program was reformist, as it intended to achieve a bourgeois revolution in Brazil. The communists considered that Brazilian society still had feudal characteristics in the countryside, which prevented the development of capitalist productive forces.
According to the PCB's assessment, the feudal sectors had the support of foreign imperialists, who had no interest in the autonomous development of the Brazilian economy. The communists proposed an alliance with the national bourgeoisie and other progressive sectors of society in order to implement a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Their program had many similar points to the proposals defended by the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), headed by then-president João Goulart. At the time, both groups were committed to fighting for the implementation of the base reforms.
Impact of the Cuban and Chinese revolutions The victory of the Cuban Revolution and the proclamation of its socialist identity challenged the ideas of the PCB. Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement attracted the support of a wide range of left-wing, nationalist and anti-imperialist groups and emerged as an alternative for those who opposed the directives of the Soviet Union. Inspired by the revolutionary successes in Cuba, two organizations emerged in opposition to the PCB: Popular Action (AP) and Revolutionary Marxist Organization Workers' Politics (POLOP). AP, created in 1962 as an autonomous organization influenced by the student movement, reached the directorate of the National Union of Students (UNE) and other student organizations during the 1960s.
Based on the Catholic University Youth (JUC), the AP defended the creation of a political alternative to capitalism and Soviet communism inspired by Christian humanism and with Castroist influences. POLOP, created in 1961, included elements from several small tendencies that opposed the PCB and were influential in university circles. It challenged the reformism of the PCB and defended the revolutionary armed struggle for socialism. Francisco Julião, leader of the Peasant Leagues, was also influenced by the Cuban Revolution. In 1961, he founded the Tiradentes Revolutionary Movement, which was intended to be the basis of a rural guerrilla movement. The MRT sent militants to conduct guerrilla training on farms throughout Brazil, but a training camp located in Dianópolis, in the state of Goiás, was discovered by the police in November 1962 and the guerrilla project was dismantled before it was actually launched.
The Sino-Soviet rupture in 1963 allowed Maoism to be perceived as an alternative to the international communist movement. In 1962, the PCB split, resulting in the formation of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB). The new party embraced Maoist China, criticized the reformism of the PCB and defended armed struggle. However, armed conflict was not an immediate or consistent political option for most Brazilian leftists before 1964. Foquismo and Maoism offered new perspectives for the Brazilian left, since Foquismo "adapted" the revolution to the Latin American reality and Maoism legitimized the revolution in a country with strong rural traditions.
Military coup of 1964 and fragmentation of leftist groups After the 1964 military coup and the defeat of the progressive forces, the traditional left-wing parties and movements collapsed and experienced a process of self-criticism. For many leftist groups, the 1964 defeat confirmed the mistakes of the pacifist and reformist political line adopted by the PCB, which was blamed for the demobilization of the workers and progressive forces at the time of the coup. The PCB leadership did not manage to accept defeat and was unable to conduct a self-criticism of its actions before 1964.
Between 1965 and 1968, the university bases broke with the PCB and formed local dissidents (DIs). In the state of Rio de Janeiro, the DI-RJ emerged; in Guanabara, the Communist Dissidence of Guanabara (both later called 8 October Revolutionary Movement); in Rio Grande do Sul, the DI-RS; in São Paulo, the University Dissidence of São Paulo; and in Minas Gerais, the Revolutionary Movement. There were divisions led by Carlos Marighella, who created the National Liberation Action (ALN), and by leader Mário Alves, who formed the Brazilian Revolutionary Communist Party (PCBR). The two organizations took PCB militants with them across Brazil, although the ALN concentrated its strength in São Paulo and the PCBR in Guanabara. It is estimated that by 1968, the PCB had lost at least half of its remaining members, who fled to organizations that proposed immediate armed resistance.
The alleged delay in preparing armed resistance to the military regime caused divisions within PCdoB. Between 1966 and 1967, it lost more than half of its members, who formed the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) in Northeastern Brazil and the Red Wing of the PCdoB (PCdoB-AV or ALA) in the Center-Southeast, which also divided and formed the Tiradentes Revolutionary Movement (MRT) in São Paulo and the Marxist Revolutionary Movement (MRM) in Minas Gerais.
AP adopted Maoism, which displeased its members and sectors of the organization that opted for a political line closer to Foquismo. Between 1968 and 1969, they joined other revolutionaries to establish the Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT). During the armed struggle, there were also militants who left the AP for other guerrilla groups. POLOP also faced splits, which would later give rise to the National Liberation Command (COLINA), in Minas Gerais, and the Communist Workers' Party (POC) in Rio Grande do Sul. In São Paulo, a POLOP dissidence merged with a part of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) to give rise, in 1968, to the Revolutionary Popular Vanguard (VPR).
Theoretical principles of the revolutionary groups
Convergences
Criticism of the PCB The left-wing organizations, although fragmented, shared common theoretical principles: all of them severely criticized the political line and practice adopted by the PCB. They considered that the PCB's analysis of the Brazilian reality was incorrect and resulted in a wrong position in the political struggle. Instead of adopting a peaceful and reformist political line, they argued that armed confrontation was necessary and denied the revolutionary role of the national bourgeoisie. The experimental period before 1964 should be discarded and the mistakes made by the PCB and the reformist political leadership should not be repeated.
Brazilian reality The organizations of the armed left analyzed the Brazilian reality in a similar way. They believed that the Brazilian economy was going through an irreversible process of stagnation and that there would be no alternative to development as long as the country was subject to imperialism, which was secured by the repressive force of the military regime. The central task of the revolutionaries was to overthrow the dictatorship and expel the imperialists, who, together with sectors of the local ruling classes, were preventing the development of productive forces. Based on this perception, historian Daniel Aarão Reis described it as a "utopia of impasse": the Brazilian situation already had "pre-revolutionary" traits, the government had no historical conditions to offer political and economic alternatives to the country, and the popular masses, disillusioned with the reformist programs, tended to adopt more radical positions and moved towards armed confrontation with the revolutionaries.
Anti-theoretical stance Another important aspect of the armed organizations was their anti-theoretical stance. The revolutionaries believed that the revolution would start with the action itself, and there was no time to waste on theoretical discussions. This attitude represented a reaction to the traditional long debates carried out by the PCB and other left-wing organizations before the coup. According to the revolutionaries, this practice would lead to bureaucratism and political immobilism, which was responsible for the defeat of the leftist groups in 1964.
Rural guerrilla warfare as a goal Even though they operated in the cities, all the armed organizations discussed rural guerrilla warfare. Urban guerrilla warfare was considered a form of armed propaganda and fundraising to start guerrilla warfare in the countryside and maintain the clandestine functioning of the organizations. In the future, the urban guerrillas were expected to have the secondary function of disorganizing the repressive forces, keeping them busy in the cities and preventing them from moving to repress the guerrillas who had started in the countryside. According to the groups' opinion, most of Brazil's population came from rural areas and were subjected to the most backward forms of oppression and exploitation, which would give them a revolutionary feeling.