History of socialism in Brazil
Encyclopedia
The history of the socialist movement in Brazil is generally thought to trace back to the first half of the 19th century. There are documents evidencing the diffusion of socialist ideas since then, but these were, however, individual initiatives with no ability to form groups with actual political activism.
The first major socialist party of the country was founded in 1902 in São Paulo
, under the direction of the Italian immigrant Alcebíades Bertollotti, who was once responsible for Avanti
, the official newspaper for the Italian Socialist Party
. That same year, the Socialist Collective Party (Partido Socialista Coletivista) was founded in Rio de Janeiro
, headed by Vicente de Sousa, a teacher at the Colégio Pedro II, and Gustavo Lacerda, a journalist and founder of the Brazilian Press Association (Associação Brasileira de Imprensa - ABI). On 1906, the Independent Workers Party (Partido Operário Independente) was founded, which created a "popular university", which had Rocha Pombo, Manuel Bomfim, and José Veríssimo as teachers.
The diffusion of socialist ideas increased during the First World War, but isolation from the general public was still vast for most of the Brazilian left-wing groups. On June 1916, Francisco Vieira da Silva, Toledo de Loiola, Alonso Costa, and Mariano Garcia launched the Manifesto
of the Brazilian Socialist Party (Manifesto do Partido Socialista Brasileiro). On May Day
of the following year, the Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Brazil (Manifesto do Partido Socialista do Brasil) was launched, signed by Nestor Peixoto de Oliveira, Isaac Izeckson, and Murilo Araújo. This group launched Evaristo de Morais to the House of Representatives and published two newspapers, The New Leaf (Folha Nova) and New Times (Tempos Novos), both short-lived.
On December 1919, the Socialist League (Liga Socialista) was formed in Rio de Janeiro. Its members started publishing the magazine Clarté on 1921, with the support of Evaristo de Morais, Maurício de Lacerda, Nicanor do Nascimento, Agripino Nazaré, Leônidas de Resende, Pontes de Miranda, among others. The group would extend its influence to São Paulo, with Nereu Rangel Pestana, and to Recife
, with Joaquim Pimenta. On 1925 a new Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista do Brasil) was launched, also formed by the group led by Evaristo de Morais.
The foundation of the Brazilian Communist Party
(Partido Comunista Brasileiro - PCB) in 1922 and its rapid growth suffocated the dozens of anarchist
organizations which played an important role in staging major strikes during the previous decade. Before the 1930 Revolution
, Maurício de Lacerda launched the short-lived United Front of Lefts (Frente Unida das Esquerdas), whose purpose was to write a draft socialist constitution for Brazil.
dictatorship. During November 23–27, 1935, a Communist uprising (Intentona Comunista) took place in Natal
, Recife
, and Rio de Janeiro. It was led by the National Liberation Alliance (Aliança Nacional Libertadora - ANL), an organization which gathered anti-fascist (socialist, communist, liberals, progressive and nationalist) military officers. In Natal, the rebels even formed a military junta
which rule the city for four days. The repression of the uprising resulted not only in the arrest of communist militants involved in it but also the persecution of popular forces in general.
On 1937, Vargas imposed a Fourth Constitution for the country, the so-called Polaca ("Polish"), after his government denounced that international military forces were trying to make a "socialist revolution" in Brazil, in what became known as Plano Cohen. This false denunciation was a pretext for Vargas to perpetuate himself as president. Written by Minister of Justice Francisco Campos, the Polaca was inspired by the April Constitution of Poland
, and was intended to consolidate the executive power over the legislative and judiciary, implementing what became known as the Estado Novo
regime. The Polaca banned political parties and suppressed even further the organized movements of society.
On 1942, Olga Benário Prestes
, a Jewish German
-Brazilian communist militant, was deported by Vargas to Nazi Germany
in 1936 after her husband Luís Carlos Prestes
led the failed Communist uprising of November 1935, and was killed at the T-4 Euthanasia Program
in Bernburg
. Another victim of the Vargas regime was the Italian-Brazilian anarchist Oreste Ristori, deported to the Kingdom of Italy
in 1936 and killed by fascist police officers on December 2, 1943.
(Partido Socialista Brasileiro - PSB) on the Electoral Justice on August 1947.
On 1946, Luís Carlos Prestes became the first self-proclaimed Communist Senator of Brazil, a feat which would only be repeated sixty years later, when Inácio Arruda was elected to represent Ceará
. By 1947, the PCB had nearly 200,000 members, having received 480,00 votes (nearly 9% of the total votes) in that year's legislative election. The party, however, was denounced as being "internationalist, and therefore not committed to Brazil's own interests" by Eurico Gaspar Dutra
on 1948, having its license revoked by Electoral Justice. On 1962, clashes emerged in the party after Nikita Khrushchev
denounced Joseph Stalin
's policies at the Soviet Communist Party
's 20th Congress. The factionalization of the PCB accelerated after a new Manifesto was approved in 1958, proposing new ways of achieving communist goals, linking the establishment of socialism to the broadening of democracy. Some of its top leaders, dissatisfied with this guidelines, quit the PCB and formed a new party, Communist Party of Brazil
(Partido Comunista do Brasil - PCdoB) in 1962.
On 1955, the Latin American Episcopal Conference
(Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano - CELAM) was created in Rio de Janeiro. It pushed the Second Vatican Council
(1962–65) toward a more socially oriented stance. CELAM is the main basis for founding the Liberation theology
, which would play a significant role on the Brazilian left of the following decades, after declining in the late 1990s.
On 1961, after the resignation of Jânio Quadros
, Vice-President João Goulart
, a social-democrat with popular reform proposals, took office. He would, however, rule the country de facto only in 1963, after a referendum
ended the parliamentary system approved by the Congress to prevent the Military Forces from overthrowing him from office due to his progressive political views. During Goulart's government, PSB's president João Mangabeira became Minister of Justice. A military coup on 1964 deposed Goulart under charges that he was leading a socialist revolution with his Basic Reforms (Reformas de Base) on the red scare
context of the Cold War
. Goulart's biggest political opponent - and coup supporter - was Carlos Lacerda
, son of Maurício de Lacerda, founder of PCB who later joined the National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional - UDN), an anti-Communist party.
(Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - MDB), the party of consented opposition to the military regime.
In the second half of the 1960s and all through the 1970s, socialists and other opposition groups to the military dictatorship suffered relentless persecution. The vast majority of milirants in armed organizations that fought the regime professed socialist ideas, ranging from Leninism
to Maoism
. The slow redemocratization process initiated by Ernesto Geisel
in the second half of the 1970s yielded its first gains on the following decade, when socialist and communist parties were once again able to organize freely and stand their own candidates.
In January 1979, at the XI Steelworkers Congress, the proposal to launch the Workers' Party
(Partido dos Trabalhadores - PT), a democratic socialist party, was made. Its official foundation would occur a year later at the Catholic school Colégio Sion (Sion High School) in São Paulo. The PT is a result of the approach between trade-unionists of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores
(CUT), intellectuals, artists, Catholics influenced by liberation theology, and the old Brazilian left.
On 1984, the Landless Workers' Movement
was created as a reaction to the military regime's failed land reform
. This socialist group grew rapidly, becoming the largest social movement
organization in Latin America
, with an estimated 1.5 million members organized in 23 out of Brazil's 26 states.
On 1988, Chico Mendes
, a member of the PT and an icon of the struggle for preservation of the Amazon Rainforest
was assassinated in his house in Acre
. He is recognized today as one of the first leaders of the eco-socialism
movement.
In the 1989 election, the PT formed a socialist coalition with the PSB and PC do B and ran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
as its presidential candidate. The Democratic Labour Party
(Partido Democrático Trabalhista - PDT), the only Brazilian member of the Socialist International
, which claimed to be the actual heir of Goulart's and Vargas' Brazilian Labour Party
(Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro - PTB), ran Leonel Brizola
. Lula beat Brizola and went on to the second round of the election, losing to neoliberal candidate Fernando Collor de Mello
. After two unsuccessful attempts (both lost to Fernando Henrique Cardoso
, a Social-Democrat, who soon adhered to the neoliberal agenda), Lula was elected in 2002. In spite of criticism of his government for alliances with right-wing politicians and practicing some unorthodox neoliberal politics, which caused the departure of some factions of the PT, Lula claims he still has "socialist skills". A major departure from his government and his party was from the group which created the Socialism and Freedom Party
(Partido Socialismo e Liberdade - PSOL).
Old Republic (1889–1930)
In 1892 the First Socialist Congress of Brazil was launched in Rio de Janeiro. Also that year, in São Paulo, another First Socialist Congress was launched, independent from the first. That same year the Workers' Socialist Party (Partido Operário Socialista) was founded in Rio de Janeiro. This is considered to be the first socialist party in Brazil. In 1895, also in Rio, the Socialist Workers Party (Partido Socialista Operário) was founded. That same year, Silvério Fontes, considered the first Brazilian Marxist, launched the Socialist Center of Santos, which soon published socialist-oriented magazine The Social Question (A Questão Social) and newspaper The Socialist (O Socialista).The first major socialist party of the country was founded in 1902 in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, under the direction of the Italian immigrant Alcebíades Bertollotti, who was once responsible for Avanti
Avanti! (Italian newspaper)
Avanti! is an Italian daily newspaper, born as the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party, published since December 25, 1896. It took its name from its German counterpart Vorwärts.-History:...
, the official newspaper for the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
. That same year, the Socialist Collective Party (Partido Socialista Coletivista) was founded in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, headed by Vicente de Sousa, a teacher at the Colégio Pedro II, and Gustavo Lacerda, a journalist and founder of the Brazilian Press Association (Associação Brasileira de Imprensa - ABI). On 1906, the Independent Workers Party (Partido Operário Independente) was founded, which created a "popular university", which had Rocha Pombo, Manuel Bomfim, and José Veríssimo as teachers.
The diffusion of socialist ideas increased during the First World War, but isolation from the general public was still vast for most of the Brazilian left-wing groups. On June 1916, Francisco Vieira da Silva, Toledo de Loiola, Alonso Costa, and Mariano Garcia launched the Manifesto
Manifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
of the Brazilian Socialist Party (Manifesto do Partido Socialista Brasileiro). On May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
of the following year, the Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Brazil (Manifesto do Partido Socialista do Brasil) was launched, signed by Nestor Peixoto de Oliveira, Isaac Izeckson, and Murilo Araújo. This group launched Evaristo de Morais to the House of Representatives and published two newspapers, The New Leaf (Folha Nova) and New Times (Tempos Novos), both short-lived.
On December 1919, the Socialist League (Liga Socialista) was formed in Rio de Janeiro. Its members started publishing the magazine Clarté on 1921, with the support of Evaristo de Morais, Maurício de Lacerda, Nicanor do Nascimento, Agripino Nazaré, Leônidas de Resende, Pontes de Miranda, among others. The group would extend its influence to São Paulo, with Nereu Rangel Pestana, and to Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
, with Joaquim Pimenta. On 1925 a new Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista do Brasil) was launched, also formed by the group led by Evaristo de Morais.
The foundation of the Brazilian Communist Party
Brazilian Communist Party
Brazilian Communist Party is the oldest political party still active in Brazil, founded in 1922, and one of the only Brazilian parties with a Stalinist orientation...
(Partido Comunista Brasileiro - PCB) in 1922 and its rapid growth suffocated the dozens of anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
organizations which played an important role in staging major strikes during the previous decade. Before the 1930 Revolution
Brazilian Revolution of 1930
The Revolution of 1930 was a movement that overthrew President Washington Luís and installed Getúlio Vargas as Provisional President.-See also:*Revolutions of Brazil*History of Brazil...
, Maurício de Lacerda launched the short-lived United Front of Lefts (Frente Unida das Esquerdas), whose purpose was to write a draft socialist constitution for Brazil.
Vargas Era (1930–1945)
Political activity was highly repressed during the Getúlio VargasGetúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...
dictatorship. During November 23–27, 1935, a Communist uprising (Intentona Comunista) took place in Natal
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte
-History:The northeastern tip of South America, Cabo São Roque, to the north of Natal and the closest point to Europe from Latin America, was first visited by European navigators in 1501, in the 1501–1502 Portuguese expedition led by Amerigo Vespucci, who named the spot after the saint of the day...
, Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...
, and Rio de Janeiro. It was led by the National Liberation Alliance (Aliança Nacional Libertadora - ANL), an organization which gathered anti-fascist (socialist, communist, liberals, progressive and nationalist) military officers. In Natal, the rebels even formed a military junta
Military junta
A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...
which rule the city for four days. The repression of the uprising resulted not only in the arrest of communist militants involved in it but also the persecution of popular forces in general.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and was intended to consolidate the executive power over the legislative and judiciary, implementing what became known as the Estado Novo
Estado Novo (Brazil)
Vargas Era is the period in the history of Brazil that lasted from 1930 to 1945, when the country was under the leadership of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas....
regime. The Polaca banned political parties and suppressed even further the organized movements of society.
On 1942, Olga Benário Prestes
Olga Benário Prestes
Olga Benário Prestes was a German-Brazilian communist militant.She was born in Munich as Olga Gutmann Benário, to a Jewish family. Her father, Leo Benário, was a Social-Democrat lawyer, and her mother, Eugenie , was a member of Bavarian high-society...
, a Jewish German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
-Brazilian communist militant, was deported by Vargas to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1936 after her husband Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes was a leader of the 1920s tenente rebellion and the Communist opposition to the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil....
led the failed Communist uprising of November 1935, and was killed at the T-4 Euthanasia Program
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
in Bernburg
Bernburg
Bernburg is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, capital of the district of Salzlandkreis. It is situated on the river Saale, approx. 30 km downstream from Halle. The town is dominated by its huge Renaissance castle featuring a museum as well as a popular, recently updated bear pit in its...
. Another victim of the Vargas regime was the Italian-Brazilian anarchist Oreste Ristori, deported to the Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
in 1936 and killed by fascist police officers on December 2, 1943.
Second Republic (1945–1964)
After the end of the Vargas regime, socialist ideas started developing again in 1945 with the creation of the Democratic Left (Esquerda Democrática), which was registered as the Brazilian Socialist PartyBrazilian Socialist Party
The Brazilian Socialist Party , is a political party in Brazil. It was founded in 1947, before being abolished by the military regime in 1965 and re-organized in 1985 with the re-democratization of Brazil. It elected six Governors in 2010, becoming the second largest party in number of state...
(Partido Socialista Brasileiro - PSB) on the Electoral Justice on August 1947.
On 1946, Luís Carlos Prestes became the first self-proclaimed Communist Senator of Brazil, a feat which would only be repeated sixty years later, when Inácio Arruda was elected to represent Ceará
Ceará
Ceará is one of the 27 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is currently the 8th largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil. The state capital is the city of...
. By 1947, the PCB had nearly 200,000 members, having received 480,00 votes (nearly 9% of the total votes) in that year's legislative election. The party, however, was denounced as being "internationalist, and therefore not committed to Brazil's own interests" by Eurico Gaspar Dutra
Eurico Gaspar Dutra
Eurico Gaspar Dutra , was a Brazilian marshal, politician and president of Brazil from 1946–1951.He was born in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, and like many other Brazilians, was from Azorean-Portuguese origin...
on 1948, having its license revoked by Electoral Justice. On 1962, clashes emerged in the party after Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
denounced Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's policies at the Soviet Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
's 20th Congress. The factionalization of the PCB accelerated after a new Manifesto was approved in 1958, proposing new ways of achieving communist goals, linking the establishment of socialism to the broadening of democracy. Some of its top leaders, dissatisfied with this guidelines, quit the PCB and formed a new party, Communist Party of Brazil
Communist Party of Brazil
The Communist Party of Brazil is a political party in Brazil. It has national reach and deep penetration in the trade union and students movements. PCdoB dispute with the Brazilian Communist Party the title of "oldest political party in Brazil"...
(Partido Comunista do Brasil - PCdoB) in 1962.
On 1955, the Latin American Episcopal Conference
Latin American Episcopal Conference
The Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano , also known as CELAM, is a conference of the Roman Catholic bishops of Latin America, created in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil....
(Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano - CELAM) was created in Rio de Janeiro. It pushed the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
(1962–65) toward a more socially oriented stance. CELAM is the main basis for founding the Liberation theology
Liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions...
, which would play a significant role on the Brazilian left of the following decades, after declining in the late 1990s.
Jânio Quadros
Jânio da Silva Quadros , , was a Brazilian politician who served as President of Brazil for only 7 months in 1961.-Career:...
, Vice-President João Goulart
João Goulart
João Belchior Marques Goulart was a Brazilian politician and the 24th President of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on April 1, 1964. He is considered to have been the last left-wing President of the country until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003.-Name:João Goulart is...
, a social-democrat with popular reform proposals, took office. He would, however, rule the country de facto only in 1963, after a referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
ended the parliamentary system approved by the Congress to prevent the Military Forces from overthrowing him from office due to his progressive political views. During Goulart's government, PSB's president João Mangabeira became Minister of Justice. A military coup on 1964 deposed Goulart under charges that he was leading a socialist revolution with his Basic Reforms (Reformas de Base) on the red scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
context of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Goulart's biggest political opponent - and coup supporter - was Carlos Lacerda
Carlos Lacerda
Carlos Frederico Werneck de Lacerda was a Brazilian journalist and politician.Born in Rio de Janeiro, Lacerda was the son of a family of politicians from Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro State....
, son of Maurício de Lacerda, founder of PCB who later joined the National Democratic Union (União Democrática Nacional - UDN), an anti-Communist party.
Military dictatorship (1964–1985)
With the 1964 coup, all political parties were banned, and socialist organizations had to act clandestinely once again. The creation of bipartisanship in 1965 allowed moderate left-wing politicians to join the Brazilian Democratic MovementBrazilian Democratic Movement
The Brazilian Democratic Movement was a political party in Brazil that existed from 1965 to 1979. It was formed in 1965, when the military government that overthrew President João Goulart abolished all existing political parties...
(Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - MDB), the party of consented opposition to the military regime.
In the second half of the 1960s and all through the 1970s, socialists and other opposition groups to the military dictatorship suffered relentless persecution. The vast majority of milirants in armed organizations that fought the regime professed socialist ideas, ranging from Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
to Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
. The slow redemocratization process initiated by Ernesto Geisel
Ernesto Geisel
Ernesto Beckmann Geisel, was a Brazilian military leader and politician of German descent who was President of Brazil from 1974 to 1979.-Early life and family:...
in the second half of the 1970s yielded its first gains on the following decade, when socialist and communist parties were once again able to organize freely and stand their own candidates.
In January 1979, at the XI Steelworkers Congress, the proposal to launch the Workers' Party
Workers' Party (Brazil)
The Workers' Party is a democratic socialist political party in Brazil. Launched in 1980, it is recognized as one of the largest and most important left-wing movements of Latin America. It governs at the federal level in a coalition government with several other parties since January 1, 2003...
(Partido dos Trabalhadores - PT), a democratic socialist party, was made. Its official foundation would occur a year later at the Catholic school Colégio Sion (Sion High School) in São Paulo. The PT is a result of the approach between trade-unionists of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores
Central Única dos Trabalhadores
-See also:*Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores*Força Sindical-External links:...
(CUT), intellectuals, artists, Catholics influenced by liberation theology, and the old Brazilian left.
On 1984, the Landless Workers' Movement
Landless Workers' Movement
Landless Workers' Movement is a social movement in Brazil; it is the second largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members in 23 out of Brazil's 26 states. The MST states it carries out land reform in a country it sees as mired by unjust land distribution...
was created as a reaction to the military regime's failed land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
. This socialist group grew rapidly, becoming the largest social movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
organization in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, with an estimated 1.5 million members organized in 23 out of Brazil's 26 states.
New Republic (1985–present)
Chico Mendes
Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes , was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples...
, a member of the PT and an icon of the struggle for preservation of the Amazon Rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
was assassinated in his house in Acre
Acre (state)
Acre is one of the 27 states of Brazil. It is situated in the southwest of the Northern Region, bordering Amazonas to the north, Rondônia to the east, Bolivia to the southeast and the Ucayali Region of Peru to the south and west. It occupies an area of 152,581.4 km2, being slightly smaller...
. He is recognized today as one of the first leaders of the eco-socialism
Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
movement.
In the 1989 election, the PT formed a socialist coalition with the PSB and PC do B and ran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , known popularly as Lula, served as the 35th President of Brazil from 2003 to 2010.A founding member of the Workers' Party , he ran for President three times unsuccessfully, first in the 1989 election. Lula achieved victory in the 2002 election, and was inaugurated as...
as its presidential candidate. The Democratic Labour Party
Democratic Labour Party (Brazil)
The Democratic Labour Party is a populist, democratic socialist political party of Brazil. It was founded in 1979 by left-wing leader Leonel Brizola as an attempt to reorganize the Brazilian leftist forces during the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship...
(Partido Democrático Trabalhista - PDT), the only Brazilian member of the Socialist International
Socialist International
The Socialist International is a worldwide organization of democratic socialist, social democratic and labour political parties. It was formed in 1951.- History :...
, which claimed to be the actual heir of Goulart's and Vargas' Brazilian Labour Party
Brazilian Labour Party (current)
The Brazilian Labour Party is a center-right political party in Brazil founded in 1981 by Ivete Vargas, niece of President Getúlio Vargas. It claims the legacy of the historical PTB, although many historians reject this because the early version of PTB was a center-left party with wide support in...
(Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro - PTB), ran Leonel Brizola
Leonel Brizola
Leonel de Moura Brizola was a Brazilian politician. Launched in politics by Getúlio Vargas, Brizola was the only politician to serve as governor of two different states in the whole history of Brazil. In 1959 he was elected governor of Rio Grande do Sul, and in 1982 and 1990 he was elected...
. Lula beat Brizola and went on to the second round of the election, losing to neoliberal candidate Fernando Collor de Mello
Fernando Collor de Mello
Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello was the 32nd president of Brazil from 1990 to 1992, when he resigned in a failed attempt to stop his trial of impeachment by the Brazilian Senate...
. After two unsuccessful attempts (both lost to Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Fernando Henrique Cardoso – also known by his initials FHC – was the 34th President of the Federative Republic of Brazil for two terms from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2002. He is an accomplished sociologist, professor and politician...
, a Social-Democrat, who soon adhered to the neoliberal agenda), Lula was elected in 2002. In spite of criticism of his government for alliances with right-wing politicians and practicing some unorthodox neoliberal politics, which caused the departure of some factions of the PT, Lula claims he still has "socialist skills". A major departure from his government and his party was from the group which created the Socialism and Freedom Party
Socialism and Freedom Party
The Socialism and Freedom Party is a Brazilian political party . Among the party leaders are Heloísa Helena , federal deputies Luciana Genro and Babá , and a number of well-known Brazilian left-wing leaders and intellectuals, such as Milton Temer, Carlos Nelson Coutinho, Ricardo Antunes,...
(Partido Socialismo e Liberdade - PSOL).