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Combate nas trevas (Série Temas)
Portugese
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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October 29, 2024
Gorender provides a history (as of yet untranslated to English) of how a large section of the Brazilian left resorted to forms of armed struggle in response to the military dictatorship that came into being through the coup of 1964 and lasted until the mid 1980s. The author himself was a participant in events, being a leading member of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) until 1967/1968, and then a founding member of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro – Revolucionario who was subjected to severe torture and imprisonment for his efforts. He himself claims to have been agnostic about the turn to arms though to my ignorant eyes he seems fair to most concerned throughout. I’ll firstly try to summarise events here – mostly going from memory so any inaccuracies are my fault and be prepared for an alphabet soup.
The majority of the armed groups that emerged pursued Cuban inspired 'foquismo', and many of their militants were indeed trained in Cuba. Of these the most famous, and Cuban endorsed, was the Ação Libertadora Nacional under the leadership of Carlos Marighella who had also split from the PCB. There were also several other groups mainly derived from the Luxemburgist/Trotskyist influenced group Organização Revolucionária Marxista Política Operária POLOP and Gorender’s own PCB-R. These groups pursued ‘immediate armed struggle’ following a two-stage strategy where a period of urban-based activity would prepare the way for a guerilla campaign in the countryside. Between 1969 and 1973 these groups engaged in bank robberies and other fundraising activities to buy arms and prepare their rural bases, kidnappings of diplomats (such as the American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick) in order to secure the release of imprisoned activists, political assassinations, and other activies such as hijackings of radio stations to disseminate their message etc. The state response was brutal and each of these groups were crushed through successive waves of arrests, systematic use of torture, and assassinations of leading members such as Marighella, Mário Alves and Carlos Lamarca among many others. Though some of these groups had begun to establish a rural base – none managed to get past the urban stage.
The exception was the armed wing of the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B), formed in 1962 after a Maoist split from the PCB, that received training in China and pursued a different strategy that focused on establishing a rural base from the outset. They chose the Araguaia region of Pará for this purpose and began to sent militants from 1967 onwards while otherwise maintaining a low profile. While the army and security forces were focused on the urban guerillas they quietly sought to build connections with the local community, however in 1972 their presence was discovered. The 60-80 guerrilla troops there managed to survive two military incursions by ill prepared conscripts, only to be defeated by a third by specialist troops between 1973-1974. The military were determined to suppress any news of this insurgency – the bodies of killed guerillas were ‘disappeared’ and news of events only emerged in the media years later in the late 1970s. Following the destruction of its armed wing the political leadership of the PC do B suffered a crushing blow in 1976 when a traitor gave up the location of their next central committee meeting leading to the murder of three members and the imprisonment of most of the remainder.
In Gorender’s telling the failures of each of these attempts of insurrection were rooted in their detachment from the masses. The focoist groups insistence on immediate armed uprising meant they had no popular base – while the messy nature of many of the actions they engaged in alienated potential supporters. The PC do B, meanwhile, also effectively ended up equally detached from potential popular support, its urban clandestinity meant few had access to its propaganda efforts, and they had very limited success in winning the rural inhabitants of Pará into their cause. For Gorender the real opening for a turn to arms had been missed, on the eve of the coup in 1964, when popular mobilisation was at its highest and the machinations of the Brazilian right were obvious.
Related to this failure, Luís Carlos Prestes, the longtime general secretary of the Soviet algined PCB, is cast as a buffoon throughout this work. By Gorender's telling under his leadership the party remained pacifist/passive while pinning all hopes in the ‘progressive’ national bourgeoisie. He also notes this 'incorrigible archivist' had a bad habit of allowing his personal papers to be seized by the police and used to incriminate himself and his comrades. This occurred (twice!) in the 1930s and again following the 1964 coup.
The majority of the armed groups that emerged pursued Cuban inspired 'foquismo', and many of their militants were indeed trained in Cuba. Of these the most famous, and Cuban endorsed, was the Ação Libertadora Nacional under the leadership of Carlos Marighella who had also split from the PCB. There were also several other groups mainly derived from the Luxemburgist/Trotskyist influenced group Organização Revolucionária Marxista Política Operária POLOP and Gorender’s own PCB-R. These groups pursued ‘immediate armed struggle’ following a two-stage strategy where a period of urban-based activity would prepare the way for a guerilla campaign in the countryside. Between 1969 and 1973 these groups engaged in bank robberies and other fundraising activities to buy arms and prepare their rural bases, kidnappings of diplomats (such as the American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick) in order to secure the release of imprisoned activists, political assassinations, and other activies such as hijackings of radio stations to disseminate their message etc. The state response was brutal and each of these groups were crushed through successive waves of arrests, systematic use of torture, and assassinations of leading members such as Marighella, Mário Alves and Carlos Lamarca among many others. Though some of these groups had begun to establish a rural base – none managed to get past the urban stage.
The exception was the armed wing of the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PC do B), formed in 1962 after a Maoist split from the PCB, that received training in China and pursued a different strategy that focused on establishing a rural base from the outset. They chose the Araguaia region of Pará for this purpose and began to sent militants from 1967 onwards while otherwise maintaining a low profile. While the army and security forces were focused on the urban guerillas they quietly sought to build connections with the local community, however in 1972 their presence was discovered. The 60-80 guerrilla troops there managed to survive two military incursions by ill prepared conscripts, only to be defeated by a third by specialist troops between 1973-1974. The military were determined to suppress any news of this insurgency – the bodies of killed guerillas were ‘disappeared’ and news of events only emerged in the media years later in the late 1970s. Following the destruction of its armed wing the political leadership of the PC do B suffered a crushing blow in 1976 when a traitor gave up the location of their next central committee meeting leading to the murder of three members and the imprisonment of most of the remainder.
In Gorender’s telling the failures of each of these attempts of insurrection were rooted in their detachment from the masses. The focoist groups insistence on immediate armed uprising meant they had no popular base – while the messy nature of many of the actions they engaged in alienated potential supporters. The PC do B, meanwhile, also effectively ended up equally detached from potential popular support, its urban clandestinity meant few had access to its propaganda efforts, and they had very limited success in winning the rural inhabitants of Pará into their cause. For Gorender the real opening for a turn to arms had been missed, on the eve of the coup in 1964, when popular mobilisation was at its highest and the machinations of the Brazilian right were obvious.
Related to this failure, Luís Carlos Prestes, the longtime general secretary of the Soviet algined PCB, is cast as a buffoon throughout this work. By Gorender's telling under his leadership the party remained pacifist/passive while pinning all hopes in the ‘progressive’ national bourgeoisie. He also notes this 'incorrigible archivist' had a bad habit of allowing his personal papers to be seized by the police and used to incriminate himself and his comrades. This occurred (twice!) in the 1930s and again following the 1964 coup.
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