Brazilian Communist Party
브라질 공산당
A Marxist–Leninist party in Brazil, founded in Niterói on 25 March 1922 as the Communist Party of Brazil (Partido Comunista do Brasil). Long led by Luís Carlos Prestes, it spent most of the twentieth century outlawed apart from brief legal periods. A Maoist-leaning faction split off as the PCdoB in 1962, and when a majority dissolved the party in 1992 to found the Popular Socialist Party (PPS), the minority that opposed the move reconstituted it under its historic name.
In depth
The party was founded on 25 March 1922 in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, when nine representatives of communist groups from São Paulo, Santos, Cruzeiro, Porto Alegre, Recife, Niterói, Juiz de Fora and Rio de Janeiro approved its statutes and the twenty-one conditions for joining the Communist International. It had 73 members, chiefly former anarchists who had been disappointed by the anarchist movement's lack of unity and force and inspired by the Russian Revolution. According to the English-language source the Comintern did not recognise it in its first years because of its eclectic ideological roots. The party was outlawed early on, and its weekly A Classe Operária, launched in 1925, was shut down by the police. By the time it was recognised by the Comintern in 1930 it had about 1,100 members.
Luís Carlos Prestes, who had led the Prestes Column, joined the party later and became its leading figure. The party supported the Revolution of 1930 before turning against the Vargas government, and was outlawed under the Estado Novo (1937–1945). At the Mantiqueira Conference of 1943 Prestes was elected party leader, and when Vargas's dictatorship ended in 1945 the party became legal and by 1947 had nearly 200,000 members. According to the English-language source it won about 480,000 votes (about 9%) in the 1947 election, but it was banned again that year and spent most of the next four decades underground.
Factional conflict grew after the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956, and in 1958 a new manifesto linked the building of socialism to the broadening of democracy. Leaders dissatisfied with this line founded a new party in 1962 under the original name, Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB). After the 1964 coup the party opposed the military regime within the opposition front, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), but refused to take up armed struggle, and many leaders left the party or died at the hands of the regime. According to the Portuguese-language source, Prestes broke with the party leadership in March 1980 in his "Letter to the Communists".
After the 1979 amnesty the party set about rebuilding, but the collapse of the Eastern Bloc deepened its crisis. In January 1992 a group led by Roberto Freire used the 10th Congress to dissolve the party and found the democratic socialist Popular Socialist Party (PPS), which inherited the party's legal registration and, according to the English-language source, its electoral number 23. A minority including Ivan Pinheiro questioned the legality of the congress and decided to keep the party Marxist–Leninist. According to the Portuguese-language source about 600 activists of the "National Movement in Defence of the PCB" held a new congress on 25 March 1993 that kept the name and symbols, and according to the English-language source the party was officially registered in 1996. It has remained small with insignificant electoral results, and in 2006 formed an electoral alliance with the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) and the United Socialist Workers' Party (PSTU).