Socialism in Brazil

The history of socialism 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.

History

Old Republic (1889–1930)

The first socialist party in Brazil was founded on 1902 in São Paulo, under the direction of the Italian immigrant Alcebíades Bertollotti, which was once responsible for Avanti, the official newspaper for the Italian Socialist Party. That same year, it was founded the Socialist Collective Party (Partido Socialista Coletivista) 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, it was founded the Independent Workers Party (Partido Operário Independente), which even 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 the 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, it was launched the Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Brazil (Manifesto do Partido Socialista do Brasil), 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 it was launched a new Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista do Brasil), also formed by the group lead by Evaristo de Morais.

The foundation of the Brazilian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Brasileiro - PCB) on 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), which purposes was the writing of a draft socialist constitution for Brazil.

Vargas Era (1930–1945)

Political activity was highly repressed during the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship. On 1936, Maurício de Lacerda was arrested accused of being part of the Communist uprising of November 1935, which was a coup attempt against Vargas by PCB members.

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, deported by Vargas to Nazi German on 1936 after her husband Luís Carlos Prestes leaded the failed Communist uprising of November 1935, was killed at the T-4 Euthanasia Program in Bernburg.

Second Republic (1945–1964)

After the end of the Vargas regime, socialist ideas started developing again on 1945 with the creation of the Democratic Left (Esquerda Democrática), which was registered as Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Brasileiro - PSB) on the Electoral Justice on August 1947.

By 1947, PCB had nearly 200,000 members, having received 480,00 votes (nearly 9% of the total votes) on 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 on the party after Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin's policies at the Soviet Communist Party's 20th Congress. The factionalization of PCB accelerated after a new Manifesto was approved on 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 1961, after the resignation of Jânio Quadros, Vice-President João Goulart, a social-democratic with popular reform proposals, took office. He would, however, rule the country de facto only in 1962, 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 which 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 the moderate left-wing politicians to join the Brazilian Democratic Movement (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - MDB), party of consented opposition to the military regime.

On 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 armed organizations militants that fought the regime professed socialist ideas, ranging from maoism to leninism. The slow democratization 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 launch their own candidates.

New Republic (1985–present)

On the 1989 election, the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores - PT) formed a socialist coalition with PSB and PC do B and launched 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), launched Leonel Brizola. Lula topped Brizola and went on to the second round of the dispute, losing to neoliberal candidate Fernando Collor de Mello. After two unsuccessful attempts (both lost to Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a Social-Democrat, which soon incorporated the neoliberal agenda), Lula was elected on 2002. In spite of criticism to his government, which caused the departure of some factions of 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).