From congressman to urban guerrilla theorist: the military dictatorship's enemy number one
“Não tive tempo para ter medo” — "I didn't have time to be afraid" — epitaph on his tomb, designed by Oscar Niemeyer
Brazilian Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and theorist of urban guerrilla warfare. Born to an Italian immigrant father and Afro-Brazilian mother in Bahia, he joined the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) in 1934. Elected federal deputy in 1946, he lost his mandate when the party was outlawed in 1948. After the 1964 military coup, he broke with the PCB over its rejection of armed struggle and founded the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN), an urban guerrilla group, in 1968. His Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla (1969) influenced revolutionary movements worldwide; he was shot dead by police in a São Paulo ambush later that year.
Career Timeline
- 1932First arrest for a poem criticizing Bahia interventor Juracy Magalhães
- 1934Left civil engineering studies; joined the PCB
- 1936–1945Repeated arrests and imprisonment, including a long stretch 1939–1945
- 1946–1948Federal deputy for the PCB; lost mandate when the party was outlawed
- 1953–1954Visited China at the invitation of the Chinese Communist Party
- 1967Expelled from the PCB over the armed-struggle line
- 1968.02Founded the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN)
- 1969.06Wrote the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla
- 1969.11Shot dead in a DOPS ambush in São Paulo