(en) Brazil, UNIPA, The peasant struggle and the dictatorship Brazilian civil-military: the role of trade union repression and guardianship over the field workers (fr, pt)

Camponesas Leagues - Brazil ---- A report by the Secretariat on Human Rights (SDH), dated 
September 2012, indicates that the murders during the Civil-Military Dictatorship 
Brazilian would have been much higher than the few cases legally recognized by the state. 
The report indicates the minimum of 1,196 murdered between peasants and peasant supporters 
of the cause. On the other hand, the number is recognized legally only 29 political 
killings in the countryside. The peasants are excluded even their right to justice and 
memory. The central issue here is that we want to return the number of deaths presented by 
the study of SDH has once again demonstrated the political weight of the peasant struggle 
in this country, a fact omitted by many "intellectuals", parties and even the legal-State 
recognition.

The pre-dictatorship period: the radicalization of the class struggle and the struggle of 
tendencies

The moment that precedes the dictatorship of 64 is characterized by relatively free and 
independent peasantry against State action and organization. The peasant associations, 
unions and especially the national organization of the Peasant Leagues, this period did 
not have a direct legal and political control of the state. Although there is already a 
number of initiatives and defenses of the institutionalization of rural unionism, 
especially via Communist Party (PCB) and Catholic organizations (Catholic and AP), by the 
year 1960 there were more than 8 rural unions recognized and registered with the Ministry 
Labour, three of the states of Pernambuco and Bahia, and one in Rio de Janeiro and Santa 
Catarina.

The defense of the institutionalization of peasant organization via "official union" made 
especially for the PCB was politically opposed by leagues. The fact is that the Communists 
believed in "peaceful road" to socialism, combining with the "progressive" bourgeoisie and 
participating governments with bourgeois parties. Maintain peace and order was a necessity 
of this strategy. However, the conflicts of the field ceased not to radicalize forward the 
developmental policies (supported by the PCB itself). Faced with this, the fighting and 
guerrilla tactics used by leagues and other peasant organizations were taking great 
political proportions, demonstrating the viability of the armed struggle against 
landlordism and capitalist exploitation.

1964-1988: The dictatorship and authoritarianism of the bourgeoisie in response

Jos? Campos Barreto, the "Zequinha" Lamarca developed alongside the revolutionary 
political work among the peasants. Were murdered in 1971 in the town of Painted-BA. 
Zequinha Live!

With the radicalization of the struggle for rights in the countryside and in the city 
(especially the struggle for land) as well as the inability of the bourgeois populist 
government of Joao Goulart in containing these struggles, the response of the industrial 
bourgeoisie, landlordism and layers of high military will be the coup of March 31, 1964. 
As we remember the beginning of this text, the dictatorship organized a real war machine 
to kill, torture and persecute the peasants and their allies. The Communist Party remained 
listless against fascist coup, seeing his disastrous bourgeois-democratic political fall 
to the ground and even allies of the "progressive bourgeoisie" pass the bag and baggage to 
the side of dictatorship (as Mauro Borges, former governor of Goi?s).

The history of the movement of rural workers is forever marked by repression of 
civil-military dictatorship. Whether the government of Get?lio Vargas can be defined as a 
milestone in the imposition of state of trade unionism in cities and workers' unions, 
Dictatorship 1964 can be defined as a milestone in the consolidation of this structure in 
the control of peasants and rural workers. According intellectual Armando Boito J?nior: 
"The deployment of the military dictatorship in 1964 sealed the defeat of the leagues and 
win the state in the field of trade unionism. The dictatorship, and dissolve the leagues, 
created thousands of official unions in the field " (State Unionism in Brazil, 1991). 
Therefore, even more than the brutal persecution and murder of hundreds of leaders, the 
dictatorship imposed a new organizational structure for the peasants that remains to this 
day: the official rural unionism, represented by CONTAG.

The militaristic repression is not over! Organize new Peasant Resistance!

The last decade of the PT government shows that the path of conciliation with the 
bourgeoisie in "progressive" governments brings no progress in the fight for workers. 
Repression continues claiming lives in the countryside. The National Strength follows 
attacking and killing indigenous and peasants struggling for land, and often silences and 
endorsement of the pro-government entities (CONTAG, CUT, CMS, etc..). And all this is 
happening today in the name of the same model of "rural development" legacy dictatorship: 
the conservative modernization, agribusiness, export production, land concentration.

Strike in 2012 cane cutters of the Mill Decasa. The strike was organized in an autonomous 
and combative form the Union of Rural Workers of Chairman Wenceslas and Maraba Paulista.

The brave fighters of the field can no longer sustain illusions that a "land reform" will 
be taken by political agreements within the state. Yes we must continue and deepen the 
combative methods of peasant organization: building autonomous rural unions, union 
opposition and militant peasant movements, and strengthen direct action through land 
occupations, rural and strikes in defense of rural-urban general strike. This new 
organization should be articulated in the strategy of the Revolutionary Syndicalism. We 
must denounce the military repression of yesterday and today, also denouncing the betrayal 
of former and current PCB PT and PCdoB, remembering our dead in dictatorship and those who 
fell in the current pseudo-"democratic" regime, continuing the struggle and bravery of so 
many peasants.

Punishment to killers and tortured the Dictatorship!

Do not forget, nor forgive!

Death to Unionism State!

Direct Action for Land and Liberty!