Carlos Marighella

In 1966, Carlos Marighella argued in The Brazilian Crisis against an alliance with the bourgeoisie and reliance on elections, advocating work among workers and peasants and armed struggle. He resigned from the executive commission of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), while remaining in its São Paulo state committee. In August 1967, contrary to the PCB's decision to boycott the conference, he attended the meeting of the Latin American Solidarity Organization (OLAS) in Cuba on his own; the party expelled him the following month. A group of São Paulo communists led by Marighella and Joaquim Câmara Ferreira announced the formation of a new armed organization in February 1968, the beginning of the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN). The ALN treated urban guerrilla warfare as part of a broader revolutionary strategy and raised funds through bank robberies. After Institutional Act No. 5, issued in late 1968, sharply curtailed constitutional freedoms, the organization undertook more audacious operations. It used Marighella's Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, written in June 1969, as a tactical guide. On 4 September 1969 the ALN and the Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR-8) kidnapped U.S. ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in Rio de Janeiro. They demanded publication of a manifesto and the release abroad of 15 political prisoners belonging to different organizations; the government met the demand. The kidnapping, along with attacks on military barracks to obtain weapons, led the government to intensify efforts to capture guerrilla members. Marighella was shot dead in São Paulo on 4 November 1969 during a police operation commanded by Inspector Sérgio Fleury. The ALN continued under Joaquim Câmara Ferreira, but weakened as its leaders and members were arrested. Marighella's case for armed struggle opposed the PCB's prevailing peaceful and electoral line, and the organization he founded confronted the military regime directly through urban guerrilla operations.