Brazilian Communist Party

The Communist Party of Brazil (in Portuguese: Partido Comunista do Brasil), known by the acronym PCdoB, It is a Brazilian political party whose electoral code is 65. It is identified with the color red and its symbol is the hammer and sickle.

It was founded in 1958 as a dissident wing allied to Stalinism within the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), which, at that time, opposed the reforms defended by Nikita Khrushchev during the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unionin 1956. In 1962 the PCdoB emerged as a political party after a split within the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), representing one of the first major ruptures in a communist party that occurred after the Sino-Soviet Breakup..

Since 2002 he has been an ally of the Workers' Party and its presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, having taken an active part in the opposition to the government of Jair Bolsonaro (2018-2023). Its current president, Luciana Santos, has been Minister of Science and Technology of Brazil since January 1, 2023, forming part of Lula da Silva's third government.

He publishes his press called A Classe Operária (The Working Class) and the magazine Princípios, internationally, he is a member of the São Paulo Forum and student movement, organized based on the Union of Socialist Youth (UJS).

History

Origin

The name Communist Party of Brazil was first used by the former PCB, founded on March 25, 1922. Later, the PCB changed its name to the Communist Party of Brazil. When the international division was made in the communist movement, starting with the XX Congress of the CPSU in 1956, the PCB broke with said party in the V Congress in 1960, and this break reached the leadership of the PCB, which appeared at the Mantiqueira Conference in 1943, with Mauricio Grabois, Pedro Pomar, Diógenes Arruda Casa and João Amazonas, among others. This division led to the creation of the PC do B, which adopted the original name of the PCB: Communist Party of Brazil. It should be noted that the PC do B, despite being a dissident, always claimed to be the natural continuity of the original PCB, which is why it uses the founding date of the latter as its own, and claims to be the oldest party in Brazil. Its first congress, held in 1960, was called the 5th Congress, to continue the chronology of the party from which it originated.

The Fifth Extraordinary National Conference of the Communist Party of Brazil was held on February 18, 1962, in Sao Paulo. There they reorganized the party, adopted the acronym PCdoB, and proclaimed themselves the legitimate heirs and successors of the Communist Party - Brazilian Section of the Communist International (PC-SBIC), which is popularly known by the acronym PCB. Therefore, it adopts the date of its foundation as March 25, 1922. The conference was attended by delegates from Guanabara, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and Espírito Santo. This Conference, which had the importance of a Congress due to the issues it resolved, marked the complete break of the Marxist-Leninists with the so-called revisionist group of Luia Carlos Prestes, who had, according to them, usurped the party leadership and transformed the Party into a "Krushchevite organization". Unlike the revisionist line of the Fifth Congress, the Conference approved the Manifesto Program, which outlined a revolutionary line; reintroduced the Statute approved in the IV Congress; approved a resolution on the unity of communists, signing the principle that in each country there can only be a single Marxist-Leninist party; decided to republish 'The Working Class', former press organ of the Central Committee of the Party; the break with the Soviet Union was approved; and finally a new Central Committee was elected. These historic resolutions mark not only the complete and decisive break with the revisionists, but also the purpose of reorganizing the "true Marxist-Leninist vanguard in Brazil." Participated in this Conference, João Amazonas, Mauricio Grabois, Ferreira Casa, Mário Alves, Jacob Gorender, Miguel Batista and Apolonio de Carvalho.

The incorporation into the Marxist-Leninist Popular Action - APML (1975)

After the hard blows of repression and the numerous casualties in the Araguaia Guerrilla, the PCdoB lost several important figures. In this period, with a Maoist line, the party received the support of most of the Popular Action (Christian Left), a successor group to the Catholic left, which had joined Chinese socialism. After great internal debates, that organization decided to join the PCdoB, reconstituting several spaces that had been lost due to the absence of great leaders.

The Maoist directive (1962-1969)

While the PCB definitively abandons the figure of Stalin, the PCdoB maintained the former Soviet leader as one of its theoretical references (alongside Marx, Engels and Lenin). At the same time, the crisis between the Soviet Union and China reached its peak when Chinese leader Mao Zedong criticized the de-Stalinization process he launched in the Soviet Union, and accused Khrushchev of 'opportunistic' deviations.; and "reformists".

As the PCB leadership remained rigidly loyal to Moscow, Mao's split with the rest of the communist movement attracted the sympathy of the CPdoB, which sent emissaries to Beijing to formalize the ideological relationship with the new ideological guidelines of the Communist Party of China. Among these emissaries, was the exiled president of the party, João Amazonas, who was received by Mao Zedong himself. Since then, the party gradually began to focus on Maoist positions considering that only China and Albania were communist countries, and in the rest there was only a revisionist regime and no more revolutionary policies. This postulate quickly generated some differences with local and regional organizations.

However, the adherence to Maoism included a change in the strategies followed by the PCdoB. Following the principle of the prolonged people's war, the PCdoB undertook to transfer its militants to the countryside, for the formation of a peasant army. This conception of the revolutionary struggle came into contrast both with the traditional tactics of the PCB (which, faithful to the "peaceful way", opposed the armed struggle against the dictatorship) and with the focus of the new forces. such as Acción Libertadora Nacional (ALN) and the October 8 Revolutionary Movement (MR-8), which gave priority to urban guerrillas as a form of struggle against the military government established in 1964.

The definitive adhesion of the PCdoB to Maoism occurred only in 1966, in its 6th Congress. The following year, the group produced a statement supporting the Cultural Revolution that was underway in China. In 1966, the PCdoB suffered two internal divisions: the Red Wing PCdoB and the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR).

The Araguaia guerrilla (1969-1976)

Since 1966, the PCdoB sought the formation of a guerrilla nucleus in the countryside. The area chosen for the irradiation of a future peasant army (following Maoist lines) was the southern region of Pará, near the border with Tocantins. It is estimated that the party gathered some 70-80 guerrillas with military training in the area.

The most effective guerrilla column of the PCdoB (under the name of "araguaia guerrilla") was composed of high school or university students, organized around the Patriotic Youth Union (UJP, the youth arm of the party), and working professionals from mainly Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. As it had little support among the locals, the party created the Union for Freedom and the Rights of the People (ULDP), whose manifesto contains the programmatic basis of the guerrilla.

In 1971, Army units discovered the location of the guerrilla nucleus and deployed to cordon off the area, preventing its operation and a movement towards the north of the Amazon. Guerrilla repression operations began in 1972, with three military expeditions that mobilized 25,000 soldiers. The first two were repelled, while the third expedition managed to defeat the last pockets of resistance. Most of the guerrillas died in clashes with Army forces, including leaders Osvaldão and Maurício Grabois, who died in combat with the Army on December 25, 1973. Finally, Araguaia meant a defeat in the party organization., despite having established the myth of the guerrilla, recognized as the most effective experience of armed struggle against the dictatorship. Most of those killed in the repression of the military regime between 1964 and 1979 were PCdoB militants.

The abandonment of Maoism (1976-1979)

Since the late 1960s, the militants of Action Marxist-Leninist (APML), a group derived from the Catholic left, had adopted Maoist ideology and approached the PCdoB. The merger of the two groups took place in 1975, after the end of the armed struggle. PCdoB also attracted graduates of the Brazilian Revolutionary Communist Party (PCBR) and the Eight October Revolutionary Movement (MR-8).

On December 16, 1976, the DOI-Codi-SP raided a house on Pio last died in torture, and keeping Juan Bautista Drumond alive, until amnesty was achieved for prisoners Wladimir Pomar (son of Pedro), Aldo Arantes Haroldo Lima and Elza Monnerat (both graduates, PA). This episode is known as the Lapa Massacre. In a climate where the opposition was beginning to gain strength, the press reported the crime, which caused great commotion inside and outside Brazil. The Party leadership, severely hit, functioned, until the amnesty, on the basis of a nucleus in exile.

Years later, it was discovered that the operation had had the help of an informant arrested that year, PCdoB leader Manoel Jover Teles (former PCBR member), who was expelled from the party in 1983.

Stripped of its leading cadres, the PCdoB began to regroup with members from the AP and under the personal leadership of Juan Amazonas, along with Diógenes Arruda. Arruda's death (in 1979) left Amazonas with the top leadership of the PCdoB until his death.

The failure of the peasant guerrillas and the new policy adopted by China after the death of Mao in 1976, led the PCdoB to completely break with Maoism. In 1978, the party followed Enver Hoxha in his criticism of Chinese leaders, considering Albania as a socialist country, and as the last bastion of Stalinism.

During this period, an internal division of the PCdoB led to the construction of a new party, the Communist Revolutionary Party (PRC), led by José Genoíno and Tarso Genro who would later join the Workers' Party (PT), within the so-called Red Wing.

The road to partisan legalization (1979-1987)

The adoption of the Albanian line did not mean the radicalization of the PCdoB policy. By 1978, they had all taken institutional action through the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), a moderate opposition to the military government. The PCdoB regained its parliamentary space and elected its first deputies secretly.

In 1979, with the political opening and the amnesty for political prisoners, the PCdoB found a favorable environment for the penetration of unions and student organizations. João Amazonas returned from exile in 1979, and Diógenes Arruda died of a heart attack in his car, while he was on his way to a political event. The refoundation of the UNE (1979), with Aldo Rebelo, marked the beginning of the party and its hegemony in university politics (which has continued since then, except in the 1987-1988 biennium). In 1984, the PCdoB founded the Union of Socialist Youth (UJS), its youth arm.

In 1980, Prestes broke with the PCB defending "the reorganization of the communist movement of the Communist Party" in the famous Letter to the Communists.

In unionism, the PCdoB initially adopted a policy of alliance with the union linked to the PCB, joining Conclat in 1983, which also included party moderation. At that time, the party opposed the Workers' Central (union arm of the PT). In 1984, the PCdoB joined the direct election movement, Ahora (formed by all the opposition parties), and the following year with the defeat of the Dante de Oliveira amendment, it sought out Tancredo Neves, trying to convince him to embark as candidate in the electoral college, in which he coincided with the PCB and MR8, which he considers the decisive application for the democratization and legalization of left-wing parties in 1985. It should be noted that the PT was already legalized in 1980.

In the elections for the National Constituent Assembly in 1987, the PCdoB won six deputies, between Haroldo Lima and Aldo Arantes. Of these, three were originally chosen by the PMDB legend, an ally with whom he remained, as part of the support base of José Sarney's government.

From 1987 to the Socialist Program of 1995

The social and economic crisis that followed the Cruzado Plan (1987) led PCdoB to break up the PMDB. Instead, an increasingly closer relationship with the PT and the PSB was sought. In 1988, PCdoB unionists broke with the CGT and formed the Unión Clasista, which later joined the workers of the Central Unitaria, which is currently connected to the CTB.

In 1989, together with the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), the PCdoB supported Lula da Silva's candidacy for president. The alliance with the PT for the presidential elections was repeated in the elections of 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006, only the vice presidential candidate changing.

Together with the PT, the PCdoB also strongly opposed the government of Fernando Collor. In 1991, it defended its removal, which occurred in September 1992 after large demonstrations, which included the participation of student sectors such as the EPU, the Brazilian Union of Secondary Students (UBES) and the National Union of Students (UNE). On that occasion, emphasis was placed on the leadership of Lindberg Farias himself, then president of the UNE and PCdoB militant.

Parallel to the adoption of a more radical stance internally, the PCdoB began to lose its external references. In 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Albanian regime also collapsed and with it Stalinism entered into crisis. The main reflection of these changes was the decision of the PCdoB to stop citing Stalin as one of the "classics" of Marxism. Decision made at its 8th congress, held in 1992, with the motto 'Socialism Lives'.

This decision opened the party ideologically and allowed the incorporation of new members. The PCdoB also resumed ties with Cuba. In 1995, at its 8th conference, the party approved its 'Socialist Programme'. Several communist intellectuals previously linked to the PCB (such as Nelson Werneck Sodré and Edgard Carone) approached the PCdoB.

In this period, with the fall of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe, the PCdoB began to consider the validity of a "strategic defensive" phase, that is, a period of retraction of socialist ideas and the need to accumulate forces to advance to an offensive stage.

The Socialist Program of 2009

In its 12th National Congress, the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) approved the new Socialist Program of Brazil titled "The strengthening of the Nation is the path, socialism is the course" where the party presented the "National New Development Program" (NPND) for Brazil. In this program, the necessary reforms were presented for the transition from a capitalist Brazil to a socialist Brazil, to a communist society.

From the strategic defensive to the mass Communist Party

The PCdoB, from the beginning, defended the formation of a left front to launch Lula da Silva as a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, supporting the PT in the elections of 1989, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006. Allied to the PT nationally in most of the country's states, the PCdoB registered a slight increase in its political representation, enough to maintain a permanent seat in the House of Representatives (5 representatives in 1990; 10 in 1994, 7 in 1998; 12 in 2002; 13 in 2006, etc.). In 2000, the PCdoB elected its first mayor, Luciana Santos, in Olinda (Pernambuco). Since 2001, the group came to be chaired by Renato Rabelo (former AP militant), who succeeded John Amazonas, who died the following year, at 90 years of age.

With Lula's victory in 2002, the PCdoB, for the first time, became part of the federal government, occupying the Sports Secretariat with Agnelo Queiroz. This participation was expanded in 2004 with the appointment of another deputy, Aldo Rebelo, to coordinate government policy (which he would leave the following year to return to Congress). The PCdoB also gained participation in the Senate. In 2005 the party obtained the Presidency of the Federal Chamber with deputy Aldo Rebelo, after the resignation of Severino Cavalcanti (PP-PE). On November 16, 2002, Aldo Rebelo assumed the Presidency of the Republic for one day.

In 2006, Inácio Arruda was elected senator for Ceará, with almost two million votes. The first communist senator after Luis Carlos Prestes, in 1946.

Although critical of the Lula government's economic policy, the PCdoB maintained its support for the PT to date. In 2006, the PCdoB formalized its participation in the alliance for the re-election of President Lula.

At the end of 2007 he founded, together with the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) and other independent groups in the union movement, the Brazilian Workers' Central - CTB.

The PCdoB hosted the 10th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held between November 21 and 23, 2008, bringing together 65 communist and workers' parties from around the world, to date an unprecedented event in Latin America.

This year also has its greatest expansion in the municipal elections, electing 40 mayors, among them Edvaldo Nogueira, in Aracaju, and in other cities such as Olinda (PE), Juazeiro da Bahia and Maranguape (CE).

In 2005, it held its XI Congress and reformulated its statute, among other innovations, admitting for the first time the distinction between "affiliate" and "militant" -In this case, only the one who contributes to the Party's finances and fulfills his party obligations would be a member. This movement is seen as a step towards the massification of the Brazilian Communist Party.

In 2015, during the 10th National Conference, the activist, Luciana Santos, was elected president of the party.

Authorities

PCdoB National Presidents

N.o	Secretary		Mandate
			Home	Fin
1		João Amazonas	1962	2001
2		Renato Rabelo	2001	2015
3		Luciana Santos	2015	position

National Congresses

• V Congress - held in September 1960
• VI Congress - held in 1983
• VII Congress - held in May 1988
• XVII Congress - held from 3 to 8 February 1992
• IX Congress - held from 13 to 15 October 1997
• X Congress - held from 9 to 12 December 2001
• XI Congress - held from 20 to 23 October 2005
• XII Congress - held from 5 to 8 November 2009
• XIII Congress - held in November 2013
• XIV Congress - held between 17 and 19 November 2017

Factions

Revolutionary Communist Party - PCR (1966) The Revolutionary Communist Party - PCR was an internal division of the PCdoB that occurred in 1966, four years after the reorganization of the Communist Party of Brazil. It was formed by some militants from the student movement and some activists from the Peasant Leagues.

Among its founders are Manuel Lisboa and Amaro Luís de Carvalho. The 12-point Letter to the Communist Revolution, of May 1966, formalized the break with the party created by João Amazonas.

In 1968, the PCR already had its program and its statute, as well as the definition of its National, Regional, Workers' Struggle and Student Struggle councils. Their line was the prolonged People's War, that is, surrounding the cities from the countryside, and the northeast defined as the best area to unleash the fight.

PCdoB Red Wing - favorable to focus tactics (1966) The Red Wing was another of the divisions that emerged from the Brazilian Communist Party (PC do B) in 1966. The wing, however, would only emerge in 1967, after the Conference in June 1966., which advocated for "the Union of Brazil" to rid the country of dictatorship and the neocolonialist threat. Red Wing, its name in English, was also formed by members of the peasant leagues and members of the Brazilian student movement.

The systematization of the Ala program was the denial of the resolutions contained in the "Union of Brazilians". The text presented by Ala was called "Organize a new type of party based on armed struggle." The organization was present in more States than the PCR: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo and Brasilia. Brazil's Red Wing had a similar political assessment to the PCdoB, but on some points had significant differences, especially in the emphasis on the capitalist nature of Brazil's economy.

This organization also initiated the armed struggle, and was even part of the armed front, which is made up of the following organizations: National Liberating Action (ALN), Popular Revolutionary Vanguard (VPR) and Brazilian Revolutionary Communist Party (PCBR).

Communist Revolutionary Party - PRC (1979) The Communist Revolutionary Party (PRC) was a division of the PCdoB that occurred in 1979. This Brazilian political organization served from 1980 to 1989, and participated in the founding of the Workers' Party (PT) alongside Red Wing.

Its main leaders were José Genoíno, who became president of the PT, and Tarso Genro, who held the ministries of the Lula government and temporarily assumed the presidency of the party with the fall of the Genoíno Mensalão crisis.

Today, it functions as an internal tendency of the PT, under the name of Radical Democracy (DR); which is the result of a merger with another internal trend of the Workers' Party and the Marxist Current.

Fronts of Action

The PCdoB acts on various fronts:

• Youth - UJS - Union of Socialist Youth
• Women - UBM - Brazilian Union of Women
• Black - UNEGRO - Black and Black Union for Equality
• Union - CTB - Central Brazilian Workers
• Land Reform - MLT - Earth Movement Fight
• Community Movement - CONAM - National Confederation of Neighborhood Associations
• Environment - INMA - National Institute for the Environment
• World of Peace - Cebrapaz - Brazilian Center for Solidarity of Peoples in Fight for Peace
• Sport - Araguaia Sports Association

Featured personalities

Elections

Presidential elections

Year	Formula	First round		Second round		Outcome	Note
		votes	%	votes	%
1989	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	11,622,673	16.08 %	31,076,364	46.97 %	No. electorate	Front Brazil Popular
1994	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	17,122,127	27.04 %			No. electorate	Front Brazil Popular
1998	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	21,475,211	31.7 %			No. electorate	United People Cambia Brazil
2002	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	39,436,099	46.4 %	52,772,475	61.3 %	Yes. electorate	Lula President
2006	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	46,662,365	48.6 %	58.295,042	60.8 %	Yes. electorate	The People ' s Force
2010	Dilma Rousseff	47,651,434	46.91 %	55.752,529	56.05 %	Yes. electorate	To keep changing Brazil
2014	Dilma Rousseff	43,267,668	41.59 %	54,501,118	51.64 %	Yes. electorate	Partnership With the strength of the People
2018	Fernando Haddad	31 342 005	29.28 %	47 040 906	44.87 %	No. electorate	The Happy New People
2022	Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	57 259 504	48.43 %	60 264 067	50.90 %	Yes. electorate	Brazilian Federation of Hope

Congressional elections