Organized
Labor in Brazil 1900-1937
From
Anarchist Origins to Government Control
Colin
Everett
Submitted
to:
Dr.
Frederick Gifun
HST
403-03
Seminar
on Latin America
December
16, 1999
Table
of Contents
Abstract
3
Introduction
4
The Development of Industrial Brazil
5
The Immigrant Experience and The Effects of Immigration on Brazil
7
Interracial Tensions in Brazil
11
The Politics Behind the Labor Movement
12
1900-1910 Labor Congress and Strikes
13
The Great Resurgence and the Decade of Solidarity
16
1917: The Year of the Strike
18
1918: The Attempted Revolution
21
1919
23
The Slow Decline of Labor in the 1920s
26
Conclusion
31
Appendix A
33
Appendix B
34
Bibliography
36
Abstract
The roots of organized labor in Brazil as in most other Latin American
countries, lies in the often forgotten realm of anarcho-syndicalism.
Brought to life with the flood of immigrants around the turn of the
century, Brazilian labor grew in the industrial cities along the coast.
This radical movement which grew with the anarchist passion of Southern
European immigrants and fanned by the repression of both church and state was
the single largest force behind Brazilian labor for the first twenty-five years
of its development. While the movement suffered harshly under the Vargas regime
it retained its original strength but on a much smaller scale.
Anarcho-syndicalists were still deeply involved in Brazilian labor until
the nineteen thirties when worker-controlled labor suffered a slow death and the
government took control of organized labor.
Brazil underwent the full
spectrum of development in its organized labor, from advocating worker control
and anarchist organizing to authoritative and government controlled.
This paper will show the influence that anarcho-syndicalism had on the
growth of the Brazilian labor movement and how it was the most dominating force
in Brazilian labor during the first quarter of the century of its formation
until labor's decline in 1937.
Introduction
Brazil is a country of vast extremes. The story of
labor in Brazil displays all the diversity of thought and action likely
on the subject of organized labor. From
one extreme of an anarchist controlled industrial labor force to the other a
completely authoritarian government controlled labor bureaucracy.
The story of organized labor in Brazil even at its height only represents
a fraction of that countries population. In
1920, of the 30 million people living in Brazil only 250,000 were members of the
anarchist unions at their height[1]
While this is like a minority of the population Brazil's
anarcho-syndicalist[2] movement was
the second largest in Latin America during the first quarter of the
twentieth century.[3]
Brazil went through some important changes during the last decade of the
nineteenth century. Slavery in
Brazil was only abolished in 1888. In
1887 literacy in Brazil was still only at about 45% of the population.[4] The majority of Brazilians during this period
still lived in the country's vast interior.
Everything changed around the turn of the century when
massive immigration from Southern Europe took place and over 10 million
Europeans entered South America from the 1870's until World War I.[5] Out
of that 10 million, 3,390,000 had entered Brazil between 1871-1920.[6]
Most of the immigrants arrived in the first decade of the century.
This massive wave of immigrants combined with the growth of industrial
Brazil lead to one of the worlds largest anarchist-controlled labor forces and
helped shape the history of Brazil.
This paper will detail the lives of those immigrants and, joined with the
native Brazilians, the new land they created.
The development of organized labor through various labor congresses and
strikes will be studied in detail, as
well as the influence of the ruling class, Catholic church, and the industrial
workers themselves who controlled the world they lived in.
All these things combined created this unique workers movement which made
anarcho-syndicalism the most important force in organized labor both in Latin
America and in Brazil for the first quarter of this century.[7]
The Development of Industrial
Brazil
Brazil was still primarily an agricultural country when it began to be
flooded with immigrants around the turn of the century.
Many immigrants were brought into Brazil to work the country's numerous
coffee plantations.[8]
Unfortunately for the plantation owners many of the immigrants just kept
on moving because they did not want to replace the slave labor force who had
been freed only a few years before. One
Italian journalist writing for the Italian Geographical society remarked that
the plantation owners of Sao Paulo simply wanted to " replace black slaves
for white ones".[9]
Many of these immigrants just kept on moving and finally settled in Brazil's two
major industrial centers: Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Once immigrants started to arrive in the industrial cities they were
shocked to find the crowded filthy conditions.
In Sao Paulo poor working people were crammed into small rooms averaging
10 by 10 by 18 feet, often with four to six people in each room.[10] The
sanitary conditions were just as deplorable, the poorest 15% of Sao Paulo was
forced to share one toilet for twenty people.
The poorest 10% had to share one toilet for every one hundred to two
hundred people.[11]
Industrially Brazil slowly grew as a textile center for South America. The port cities of Santos and Rio de Janeiro shipped much of
Brazil's coffee and rubber overseas to European and American markets.[12]
Brazil's ruling class still operated as if they were in a slave economy
demanding sun-up to sun-down labor; both in the fields and in the factories.[13]
The popular opinion that the ruling class shared about class division in
their society was to completely deny it. Rodriques
Alves, the president of Sao Paulo, when asked about class division in Brazil
stated, " among us (Brazilians) there is frank democracy and a complete
absence of social classes".[14]
With a developing industrial economy and a massive interior filled with
natural resources, Brazil was making itself one of South America's leading
economic centers. Brazil,
although it was growing slowly, remained a minor industrial center on a
global scale till World War I came about and Brazil was cut off from its trading
partners. As a result it was forced
to develop itself industrially to make up for what could not be imported from
Europe or America.[15]
This can be seen in the startling growth of Brazil's leading city at the
time, Sao Paulo. In 1900 Sao Paulo
had 239,820 people and 22,407 buildings, in 1918 the population and buildings
doubled to 504,278 and 55, 256 respectively.[16]
But industry and government were corrupt organizations who served only the
interests of those in power. Newly
arrived immigrants saw this decadent system based on human exploitation and
violence and rejected the whole system as beyond redemption, in this belief lies
the popularity of anarchism for Brazil's immigrant working class.[17]
In the words of historian Fanny
Simon, " Fraud, violence and
control by landed oligarchs were the rule in South America.
Many workers accordingly, came to believe that direct rather that
political action was the only way to improve their status." [18]
Organized labor as well as the growth of urban Brazil begins with the massive
wave of immigration that changed the whole world during the first half of the
twentieth century.
The
Immigrant Experience and the Effects of Immigration on Urban Brazil
Throughout its history Brazil has long suffered an identity problem.
The capitalists who ran the factories and plantations preferred immigrant
labor over that of the Brazilians. They
considered anything European to be superior over anything Brazilian; Brazilian
workers included.[19] Of the 3,390,000 immigrants who flooded into
Brazil the majority were from Italy (1,373,000), the Portuguese made up the
second largest group (901,000), Spanish immigrants were numerous as well
(500,000).[20] German, Polish, Jewish, Russian and Danish
immigrants all moved to Brazil is less sizable numbers.
By far the majority of the Italian immigrants hailed from the country and
cities of Northern Italy where a firm labor tradition had been in place for a
generation[21].
As mentioned earlier many of the immigrants skipped the cities and moved
into the countryside to find horrible conditions: trachoma alone infected
305,000 people in 1905 on coffee plantations in rural Sao Paulo.[22]
Besides the European immigrants flooding into the cities, Brazilians were often
forced by the decline of Brazilian sugar on the global markets to move from the
Northern regions to the urban centers of the south.[23] Overwhelmingly,
it was immigrants who made up the industrial and urban work forces and it was
they who were the force behind the growing anarcho-syndicalist movement in
Brazil.
Anarchism was the favored political ideology of the immigrants for a
variety of reasons. While it was
definitely a response to the harsh treatment handed down from Brazil's ruling
class, it consisted of much more than simply a reaction to cruelty.
One of the reasons for the popularity of anarchism was that few
immigrants had any desire to become citizens.
In 1920, only 6,441 or 1.45% of the 444,374 foreigners in Sao Paulo and
Rio de Janeiro had become Brazilian citizens.[24] The
Brazilian immigrant therefore existed outside of the traditional political
system. Government was something
removed to them, something distant. Anarchism
was the only political philosophy that actually encouraged its supporters to
live outside of the traditional political spectrum.
Socialist and reform parties in Brazil always encouraged its followers to
become citizens[25],
register to vote and elect them into positions of power; anarchism makes no such
requests to its adherents. It was
the relative few demands that anarchism prescribed from its followers that made
it so popular. Anarchism simply asked for less from the workers than other
political parties of the time. Anarchism was also popular to the immigrant
because many had wished to escape the rigid 'hierarchical structures'[26]
and control that was prevalent in so many Southern European communities.
To them Brazil represented a new world with the possibility to free
themselves from the restraints of the old.
Anarchism was also a strong political force in Southern Europe, with
thousands of followers in both urban and rural Europe.
One thing that almost all immigrants to Brazil shared in common was a
Catholic background. While the
immigrants may not have hailed from a personally religious background the
society they left as well as they society they entered was dominantly Catholic.
The anarchists who organized Brazil's labor movement had a delicate relationship
with Catholicism. Immigrant workers
drawn to anarchism in Brazil realized the hypocrisy of the church's action; but
at the same time yearned for fierce moral guidelines.
This is truer of the anarchists who took on the role of organizers rather
than the rank and file members of anarchist unions.
Anarchist labor organizers in Brazil followed a strict code of conducting
themselves, as many opposed all forms of alcohol, tobacco, and the eating of
meat.[27] The
anarchists in Brazil fiercely attacked the church on many issue's including the
Church's refusal to promote or acknowledge any form of birth control. [28] Brazilian
anarchists thrashed the Catholic Church for allowing such madness as Carnival
claiming it was a waste of human life. In
the words of one critic writing in A terra livre [29], " Carnival is over, and what is left ?
Squeezed buttocks and breasts and other lovely things". [30]
To anarchists who were trying to organize Brazils poor, Carnival was a
distraction for the poor so that they could forget about their miserable lot in
life in a decadent display of drinking and other unseemly behavior.
Anarchist labor organizers would cite the same distaste for any diversion
created as a chance for the workers to temporally rise above their misery.
Alcohol was the chief cultural enemy of the anarchists, but anything that
diverted the poor was open to attack: tobacco, cinema, and soccer.
The anarchists begged the poor of Brazil not to wait for eternal
redemption while living their lives in utter misery and poverty; but to grasp
the situation and take control of their destiny. They charged that the Church
was content to let the poor suffer, content to allow them to be merely passive
observers in their own lives. For
these diehard activists spreading the word of workers rights and anarchism was
the same as spreading the word of a religion.
Interestingly enough one of the favorite topics among anarchist was; Was
Jesus Christ an anarchist ?[31]
These anarchists’ activists considered themselves closer to Christ's message
than the Catholics. Closer to his personality and to his predicament of one man
against an empire. When militant
labor organizers went out to the poor to speak of workers rights and the great
division between rich and poor they present their views just as Christians
would. The evangelical spirit and the conversion experience were two traits that
militant’s anarchists shared with Christian missionaries and preachers.
What the anarchists opposed with all their strength, down to their last
breath, was the horrible hypocrisy of the Church.
A betrayal of the Church to its own message, of authority and hierarchy
covered up in the illusion of a world for the meek.
Traditionally, many historians have simplified the anarchist experience
in Brazil and all of South America by simply stating that anarchism was very
popular among the poor of Southern Europe, and that it was simply imported with
the immigrants. When the immigrants
arrived in South America they simply tried to recreate their old world in every
way and that included their political affiliations.
The Brazilian anarchist experience was far more complex than that quick
equation. As historian Sheldon
Maram, suggest anarchism flourish in Brazil because not because it was imported
with all other Southern European characteristics but because it was the movement
most attuned to the situation in Brazil.[32] This
is a major theme in the development of the anarcho-syndicalist movement in
Brazil, that anarchism was the only political philosophy capable of uniting
Brazil's immigrants and serving the organized labor needs at the same time.
The very first people to organize themselves into unions in Brazil were
not industrialists or factory workers but artisans and skilled workers.
It was their fierce independent spirit of the artisan the flamed the
fires of anarchist organizing among Brazil's working class, " Anarchism
drew it's early strength from the artisan.[33] Who
valued self-teaching and individual
enterprise and therefore saw a rise in industry a threat to his way of life
".[34] It
was in this immigrant population that Brazil's most active anarchists dwelled.
One of Brazil's most active fields and areas for anarchist action was the
stonecutters of Greater Sao Paulo.[35] Stone
cutting by its very nature was an independent activity.
Stonecutters were not paid a wage, they profited in small groups of
workers and got paid on the delivery of finished products; they needed neither
the government nor the employer. By
their positions as skilled workers who could not be easily replaced when they
struck or withdrew their labor over an issue immediate action would be taken to
remedy the problem by the people the stonecutters worked for.
In this sense 'direct action'[36] as a political philosophy made sense to them.
In contrast factory workers because of the nature of their work and the
ease of replacing the work force were often subjected to longer more drawn out
strikes.[37]
Interracial
Tensions in Urban Brazil
There was often tension among Brazils diverse population in this era. Among the Italians and Portuguese the labor movement was
often divided among the different races. Language
was the chief barrier as most labor publications and radical newspapers in
Brazils up until 1920 were published in Italian.[38]
Union’s locals, were often
divided by language. Only minor
conflicts arose between the European immigrants.
The serious divisions among races in Brazil took place between native
Brazilians and Afro-Brazilians and the massive immigrant populations.
Immigrants constantly complained that the Brazilians had no class
conscious and no passion for working class issues.
[39]
Often the Brazilians would be
used as 'scabs'[40] to
break up immigrant strikes.[41]
In the world of organized labor a
person who turns their back on his fellow workers and agrees to replace a
striking worker in considered the lowest form of human scum.
This division created by the employing class in Brazil created a huge
gulf between these two populations. This
tensions over Brazilians (often blacks) crossing immigrant picket lines created
distrust and hate between these two groups that otherwise would of shared many
things in common.
Afro-Brazilians did organize
themselves into political groups but these groups most often focused on racial
politics rather than labor issues.[42]
Occasionally an Afro-Brazilian
group would form a 'socialist' organization like the Brasil Novo
newspaper that was founded by a black lawyer Gurana Santana in 1932.
[43]
Immigrants often charged that Brazilians had no working class traditions
to draw on. [44]
While the Brazilians may not of
had a specific working class tradition to draw on many anarchists were impressed
with the inhabitants of rural Brazil ability to exist peacefully with very
little government interference. Oreste
Ristori, a famous Brazilian anarchist writing for a Geneva newspaper wrote that,
" Whole areas of Brazil are free of government, one could travel for weeks,
even months..without seeing a policemen...that the law everyone respected was
work."[45]
The
Politics Behind the Growth of Brazilian Labor
The diverse anarchists of Brazil
sponsored and took part in many activities besides the labor movement.
Brazil was particularly well know for instituting Fransico Ferrer Free
Schools. Francisco Ferrer was an internationally known anarchist
educator who was murdered in his homeland by Spanish officials for criticizing
the Catholic Church as an educational institution.[46] Free Schools were anarchist run institutions
built on learning, through free exploration of ideas rather than forced
information. Besides education, the
anarchist was often at the cultural forefront of Brazil.
They were the only group that tried to bring plays to the poor working
class. They also published literary works not related to politics in
their newspapers, like A terra livre.[47] They
always organized celebrations and festivals on the traditional anarchist
holidays, like May 1, November 11[48],
and March 18[49].
Anarchism[50]
was not a simple one-sided political philosophy but rather a complex ideology
with a diverse movement in Brazil.
1900-1910
Labor Congress's and Strikes
The anarchists did not break out of their political isolation until 1902
when many started to take an active interest in the development of trade unions.[51] The first major strike in Brazil occurred in Rio
de Janeiro in 1903 when workers at the Aliaca Textile Mill walked off the
job.[52] This
strike paralyzed Rio de Janeiro for twenty days when over 40,000 workers from
all the cities textile mills went on strike demanding better conditions and pay.
Most strikers did not win but instead they settled for a nine and a half
hour workday.[53]
The first Brazilian Labor Congress was held in 1906.
The major event of this congress was the founding of the Congresso
Operario Brasileria (C.O.B.), this new labor system was based on
anarcho-syndicalism.[54]
The system of organization the Congress endorsed was the federation system where
unions were held in loose associations but retained their individual autonomy.[55]
This federation system was directly based on the radical French anarcho-syndiclaists
union the Confederation Generale du Travail (C.G.T.).[56]
In the anarchist federation system there exists no paid officials, only
temporary officers and no official leaders.[57]
Many of the workers in urban Brazil were actually not industrial workers
but instead worked in the cities extensive service industries. [58] It was just these type of workers who struck in
1906, at the Compahia Paulista Railroad.[59]
The government reacted quickly to an anarchist lead strike that threatened
Brazils transportation network; immediately the government sent 500 troops to
break up the strike.[60]
Attorneys who tried to help strikers were arrested and the government stopped
all telegraph service in all areas around the strikers. Next, the government
went to the company housing that they provided railroad workers and started
kicking families out of their homes. The government and the Catholic Church did
not know how to handle their urban poor striking. Catholic leaders sent letters to the strikers asking them to
call off the strike;[61]
but even the urgings of the church could stop the strikers. The real reaction
came when workers in Santos threatened a sympathy strike.
The immediate reaction of the government was to send to warships to that
port city.[62]
Leaders in government and industry had good reason to fear a sympathy
strike in Santos. As Santos was regarded as Brazil's most radical city it earned
the nickname 'little Barcelona'.[63]
The C.O.B., one of Brazils leading anarchist labor organizations always
had higher membership numbers in Santos. In
1907, shortly after the C.O.B. was created Santos had
Brazil's highest concentration of organized labor and four times the
members of Rio de Janeiro unions (22,500 in Santo to 5,000 in Rio de Janeiro and
12,500 in Sao Paulo).[64]
Santos had the highest concentration of anarcho-syndicalists in Brazil for
several reasons. Since the city
served as a port and satellite city for Sao Paulo it consisted of very little
industry. The residents of Santos
were highly skilled laborers compared to Brazils other major cities. Working in
a port city provided for constant
interaction with anarchist, socialists, and communists who were arriving from
Europe and other South American countries.
Santos tended to be a city of single men in the anarchist movement.
Men with families were more likely to live in the larger cities of Sao
Paulo or Rio de Janeiro.[65] A work force of single men without the burden of
families is going to have the flexibility to take more chances and less fear of
the consequences of direct action than men who had to support a family.
In this respect, Santos shared more things in common with the huge
anarchist movement in Argentina where families were rare as the concentration to
men over women was greater.
The next strike to shake
Brazil was a general strike in the textile industry of Sao Paulo in 1907, it was
a short unsuccessful strike. After
the enthusiasm of 1906 and 1907 Brazilian labor went into a bit of a lull and
little activity took place. The
anarchist continued to publish their newspapers and organize their free schools
but little labor activity took place until the massive resurgence of 1912.
The
Great Resurgence and the Decade of Solidarity
While labor activity slowed down
for about five years between 1907 and 1912 the seeds for further revolt were
being planted in the minds of the workers.
During this time Brazils leading anarchist paper A terre livre
published seventy five issue and kept a week readership averaging around 4,000. [66]
The paper was being recognized on an international scale when Peter Kropokin the
famous Russian anarchist wrote to the paper thanking them for a donation to the
Russian anarchist movement and publishing a fine newspaper.[67]
This lull in labor activity fit right into the anarchist plan for
organizing. Their pattern was for
years organizers would spread propaganda among the workers.
When unrest happened on the labor agitators would organize a union for a
strike. If the strike was
successful than the union was kept; if the strike failed then so did the union.[68]
This was the pattern of labor organizing that anarchists employed all throughout
the 1910s and 1920s.
The C.O.B. was not the only labor organization attracting workers along
anarchist lines the Workers Federation of Sao Paulo (F.O.S.P.) was very militant
among many fields between 1908 and 1912 especially among construction workers in
Sao Paulo.[69]
These construction workers like the stone cutters of Sao Paulo were very
aggressive in their demands and their actions.
One strike in Rio Grande do Saul, which was led by that cities Federacao
Operaria Syndiacal by 1913 this group which had its headquarters in Porte
Alegre which represented 42% of all the federations members.[70]
Textile workers had always been considered hard to organize for the
Brazilian anarchists because in 1911, for example 72% of all textile workers in
Sao Paulo were women & children.[71]
These textile workers were not all together cautious though they probably just
seemed harder to organize because there were so many textile factories.
Between 1901 and 1914, twenty six of the seventy five strikes in Sao
Paulo somehow involved textile workers.[72]
In general though labor was considered to be in a decline between 1908 and 1912.[73]
The resurgence was strong when in 1912 anarcho-syndicalist unions
represented over 60,000 workers in Brazil.[74]
This new wave of unionization carried Brazil towards its second national labor
congress which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1913.[75] The themes for this congress where simple
shorter hours, better pay, and safe work conditions. Anarchists from all over
South America attended the 1913 labor congress[76]
and many were impressed with the Santos Labor Federations plan to recruit
members strictly along anarchist lines.[77] Brazil
experienced a depression in 1913 and 1914 but the labor movement only slowed
slightly.
In 1915, Rio de Janeiro hosted an international South American
anarcho-syndicalist conference with delegates attending from: Argentina, Chile,
Uruguay and five Brazilian States. The
major themes for this conference was building an anti-war movement to oppose the
war in Europe. [78]
Brazil was unique in that it maintained a large and often stable
organized labor force capable of conducting numerous strike; while at the same
time constantly having a surplus of labor.[79]
This may prove more toward the racism of the Brazilian ruling class than the
solidity of the working class as the ruling class preferred to pay European
immigrant women and children to work than use the countries massive
Afro-Brazilian population. Industrial
employers on the whole considered blacks to be fit for menial labor only as they
were considered inferior to Europeans.[80]
1917: The Year of the Strike
The years 1917 through 1920 represent the height of Brazil's worker led
labor movement. The winter of 1917
is considered one of South America's most impressive displays of human
solidarity and radical labor activities. In
these years Brazil's anarcho-syndicalist movement would ignite like a fresh
struck match. Then just a quickly
as the match ignited, the flame would burn the match until only a smolder of
what was before remains. Brazil's labor unrest was ignited not by political
ambitions but instead by the ambitions of bread.
In 1916 and the first part of 1917, Brazil was experiencing a huge
increase in the cost of living in food and fuel prices.[81]
This rise was dramatic and combined with non-increases in wages and the
populations of industrial cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were not
happy. Any attempt to better
conditions or pay was quickly turned down.
In June of 1917 workers at the Contonficio Crespi plant in the
Mocca district of Sao Paulo asked for a 25% wage increase; although business was
booming their request was turned down.[82]
Unions like the F.O.S.P. who started 1917 with membership around 30,000;
organized rallies to protest the high cost of living.[83]
At one such of these rallies on July 11, a common worker who had no connection
with the rally, Antonio Martinez, was beaten to death by Sao Paulo police.[84]
Sao Paulo erupted in shock at the brutal death of a 21 year old worker.
Antonio Martinez's funeral was a massive event.
The funeral procession marched throughout the city and at one point the
police confronted the mourners. After
a shuffle the police began to attack the crowds.
Police on horseback attacked one portion of the processional with swords.
[85] The result of this was massive unrest and
rioting in Sao Paulo. The next day, July
12, 15,000 workers walked out on strike[86]. The
day after another 5,000 workers joined the strike.[87]
Soon a general strike was declared and the city was at a standstill.
The government declared martial law and brought in the army.
The main cause behind all the strikes was the high cost of food[88] and the brutal death of Martinez was just the
catalyst. Eventually, the strike ended when the government put pressure
on the industrialist's to end the strike; the workers settled for a 10% wage
increase.[89]
Sao Paulo was actually just the begging to the strikes of 1917.
News of the unrest was not slow to reach Rio de Janeiro.
When descriptions of the strikes reached one furniture worker on the
morning of July 18, he immediately
walked off the job calling for a strike at his factory; two others workers
joined him.[90]
By the afternoon of July 18, only 150 workers had walked out in
solidarity with the strikers of Sao Paulo.
On July 19, five factories were on strike and the movement was growing
uncontrollably.[91] On
July 22, the F.O.S.P. of Rio de Janeiro called for a general strike.
To their surprise 50,000 workers went on strike on the morning of July
23. [92]
Later in the afternoon of July 23, 20,000 metal workers walked out in solidarity
with the factory workers. The
demands for all the workers were universal; an eight hour work day and a 20%
wage increase[93].
This was a textbook spontaneous general strike and all of industrial
Brazil was stopped and in control of the workers.
The reaction of the government was swift and severe.
By July 26, the government had used all its resources and declared
martial law. Army, navy, and
police were guarding all the major areas of Rio de Janeiro. [94] The strike carried on into August when the
government finally realized they could not keep control of a whole population.
The government soon forced the leaders of industry to settle with the
workers. On August 2, 1917 the Rio
de Janeiro general strike ended with the workers settling for a fifty six hour
work week and a 10% wage increase.[95]
In a few short months Brazilian labor had shown its incredible strength
and power. The workers displayed
that they were powerful enough to call strikes on a national scale. The organization and influence of the anarchist played an
important role in the speed by which union leaders called strikes.
Traditional reform unions have always been slow to call strikes
preferring long meeting with employers and drawn out negotiations.
The anarchist leadership of the F.O.S.P. knew the pulse and passions of
the workers and had the good sense and timing to know when to call the strike at
a time when they knew they could get massive workers support.
The government too was impressed with the actions of the anarchists and
the realized that they had a problem with their labor unions.
In September 1917, in response to open German bombing to Brazilian
merchant shipping the South Atlantic, Brazil entered the war against the
Germans. While Brazil had entered
the war near its end and they played a very small role the Brazilian government
used the war as an opportunity to solve their domestic labor problems.
The Brazilian government declared that the strikes of July and August
were the work of German and Italian agitators who had the backing of their
respective governments to cause unrest in Brazil.[96]
The response was the deportation of hundreds of labor leaders, the closing down
of labor newspapers and the threatened deportation of anyone professing leading
labor activity in the July and August strikes.[97] This was a devastating blow to the labor
movement that had just made so much progress with the workers.
The labor forces of industrial Brazil was at this time still mostly
immigrant and most often these immigrants worst fear was being deported from
Brazil.
1917 was the height of anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil.
As a result of the general strikes the industrial employers and the
government realized they had a common goal in the destruction of the
anarcho-syndicalist unions. The
government used World War I as an excuse to tear apart the leadership of the
anarcho-syndicalist unions but they needed a bigger event to give them an excuse
for more repressive deportations and a public crackdown of the radicals. The attempted revolt of 1918 signaled the decline of
anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil.
1918:
The Attempted Revolution
The world at this time was a place of great change and social unrest.
The standard Marxist notion that capitalism would be destroyed and a new
world would arise was a commonly held sentiment at the time.
Workers truly believed that the great socialist revolution was a just
about upon them and why would they have any reason to doubt that notion.
The whole world at his time was in a great state of revolution as
socialist movements were alive in every industrial country on the earth. When the news of the Russian Revolution first reached Brazil;
anarchists were ecstatic. Radicals
of all sorts were convinced that the Russian Revolution had spread farther and
was much more utopian that was being described to them by the capitalist press.
It was a commonly held belief among radicals everywhere that it would be
only a short time to a revolution came to a town near them.
It was with thoughts like these in their heads that a group of anarchist
labor leaders planned the overthrow on Rio de Janeiro and eventually the whole
Brazilian state. With the exception
of this incident (which as we will see never got off the ground) Brazilian
anarchism was an incredibly peaceful movement.[98] Bomb
throwing were almost unheard of as the Brazilian anarchists did very little to
live up the phantom notion of the violent lone anarchist bomb thrower.
The 1918 revolt was being planned by a group of forty anarchist labor
leaders who met in one of the classrooms of one the group’s leaders.
The group had a considerable plan and arsenal for their attack.
They had gathered 1,600 bombs, a detailed plan with people in all the key
positions of the city: power, radio, telegraphs, and transportation.
They also had over 40 barrels of gasoline ready to burn down the key
structures of government the city hall, police station, and banks[99]. Also
included in their portfolio was an small army of 4,000 militant anarchists union
members who were ready for street battles with the authorities.
The group’s plan was to take over the city and lead the workers to a
general strike that would shut down industry which then would fall under worker
control. The plan actually never
got a shot to be put into action because one of the men attending the
organizational meetings was an informant for the Rio de Janeiro police.[100] The
only results were massive arrests and deportations of all involved and some
small instances of street fighting. The
majority of the labor movement and the majority of the anarchist never had any
knowledge of the plan but they certainly felt the repression that followed as
this incident gave the Brazilian government full authority to persecute those in
the anarchist and labor movements. Actions
like this attempted revolt were a direct result of the Russian revolution which
had a enormous effect on the radical labor movement in Brazil.
1919
1919 was an important year in the
development of Brazilian labor. 1919 signaled the turning point in Brazilian
labor history when control of organized labor shifted from the
anarcho-syndicalist to the reformist unions.
The year consisted of many strikes and for the first time the strikes to
place in different regions of Brazil. Bahia,
Pernambugo, and Rio Grande do Sul as well as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and
Santos all had consistent labor activity.[101]
1919, was the first year that Brazil enacted a workers compensation law.[102]As
the anarchists would be fond of pointing out the government could create all the
laws they wanted to because it made no difference in the lives of the workers;
as this labor law was the quickly ignored Brazil's employing class.
The first major strike of 1919 took place in early May and sections of it
lasted until June and July. It is
important to note that even during a general strike not all workers would be out
on strike. Workers would often
strike a few days then return to the job as another factory or section of the
factory went out on strike. This
tactic frustrated the anarchist labor leader's who saw it as a determent to
achieving the end result. The
simple truth was the often times were just too tough in Brazil and common
workers did not have the savings to support themselves during a long strike.
It seem of confusing way to conduct of strike but these were unsettling
times in Brazil. Organized labor in
Brazil was considered at this time still very radical by global standards.
A delegate from Brazil that traveled to a world labor congress in Europe
reported that Brazilian syndicalism was not plagued by ' Socialists
Parliamentary Illusions'.[103] In others words anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil
was still a revolutionary and not a reform organization.
On May Day 1919, in Sao Paulo an anarchist rally attracted 60,000 workers
who spent the day listening to revolutionary speeches.
One month latter, 20,000 factory workers struck in Sao Paulo.[104]
Around the same time as the May Day rally in Sao Paulo another massive
strike was brewing in Rio de Janeiro. Finally
on the 4th of May 1919, 50,000 factory workers went out on strike in Rio de
Janeiro. Their demands were the same as always an eight hour work day
and a 20% pay increase. Both the
Rio de Janeiro and the Sao Paulo strikes lingered on well into June and July and
the government was starting to get serious about Brazil's growing urban labor
problem. During this time the Catholic Church displayed which side they were on.
One Catholic center in Sao Paulo begged the workers to be peaceful and
give, " Unrestricted support to all conservative classes in the present
emergency and (to) declare themselves at the side of the government for the
repression of anarchism".[105]
With the government finally forcing the hand of the industrialists the
strikers in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro won an eight hour day and a 20% wage
increase.[106]
It was a short lived victory as the trade off for the shorter hours and pay
increase was that workers had to give up their unions.[107] An organization Centro Indsutrial de Fiacao
e Tecelegem de Aldgodai, was set up to mediate the strikes they were a
composition of half workers and half employers, they made the decision to drop
the unions.[108] Shortly
after the workers in Sao Paulo lost the unions their new victories from the
strike slowly started to wither away and in some of the same factories that
struck conditions reverted to pre-strike within a year.[109]
This was the first time that the anarchist started to loose their control over
Brazilian labor. Brazil at the same
time was getting serious about the anarchist threat and in September of 1919,
Brazil signed a pact with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to rid themselves of
their mutual anarchist enemies.[110]
This was a direct result of an international labor congress in 1919 that
called for the formation of the South American Syndical International,[111]
a conference that Brazilian delegate took an active role in. Almost immediately
the arrests and deportations started. Newspapers
and the offices of anarchist lead labor unions were trashed, labor leaders were
beaten and killed.
The rebellious workers of Santos took instant action.
In mid-October 1919 strikers from Santos were arrested as part of the
repression of labor activity. Leaders
at the F.O.S.P. called for an immediate general strike on October 20, to protest
the arrests of strikers in Santos. Only
four factories took part, and the general strike was over before it had a chance
to begin it was considered a complete disaster for the F.O.S.P.[112]
The amazing instincts of the anarchist labor leaders in 1917 were missing
now as the Brazilian workers were not in a desperate food shortage and would not
rise up solely for political reasons. Unfortunately
for the anarchist the failed Santos general strike started a self destructing
pattern for the anarchist labor unions. The
exact same thing happened again when a general strike was called in 1920 for
factory workers in Rio de Janeiro and the workers did not arise.[113]
This pattern of failed general strikes would the most important cause to the
slow decline of anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil.
Industrial Brazil was getting more concentrated. In 1920, Rio de Janeiro
17,641 out of the 19,924 textile workers labored in factories employing more
than 100, 14,090 worked in factories that employed more than 1,000.[114] The
situation was similar in Sao Paulo were in large factories employers had gotten
better at spotting agitators and removing them before trouble started.
At the third Brazilian labor congress in 1920, the congress formed the
Comussao Executova do Terceiro Congresso which tried to do away with the C.O.B. [115] At this congress the delegates also voted
unanimously to condemn an international labor congress that was to be held in
Washington DC because the employers and governments were allowed to choose the
delegates for the congress. [116]
This congress showed a slow decline in anarchist sentiment and the growth in the
popularity of communism.
1921, saw another failed general strike in Rio de Janeiro where maritime
workers were on strike. The
government was now all to prepared for the anarchist predictable pattern of
striking and union organizing. Before
a movement could get started they would step in and arrest all the labor leaders
and most often deport them.[117]
The
Slow Decline Of Labor In The 1920s
Anarchist activity slowed
considerably during the 1920's for a number of reasons.
Anarcho-syndicalism became a more concentrated movement not reaching the
large numbers it did earlier but still keeping control over a number of unions
if different parts of Brazil. One
well known Brazilian labor leader was Jose Righetti, a weaver and an anarchist
who founded the Textiles Workers' Union on April 14, 1924.[118]
During this time the loose nature of the anarchist organization allowed this
Textile Workers' union to build ties to a number of community organization.
This came in helpful in July 1924, when a group of dissident military
officers took over Sao Paulo as a coup against the government in Rio de Janeiro.
During July 5-28, this military coup ran the city and kept Sao Paulo in a
state of siege. 1,000 Paulistanos
were dead and 4,000 more wounded in bombing and shelling; another 300,000 flew
into the interior around Sao Paulo.[119] In desperation, lead by Jose Righetti, people
from all over Sao Paulo raided food warehouses in Bras and Mooca. Bringing the
anarchists again a surge of popularity for their leadership and skills in direct
actions and times of crisis.[120]
Once order was restored the government blamed much of the chaos in Sao Paulo on
the anarchists. This was cause for
even more repression as dozens of labor leaders and anarchists not associated
with the anarchist movement were banished to rural prisons and labor colonies
near the French Guinea Border. [121]
1925 saw more labor laws passed by the Brazilian government.
This new law tried to enforce a two week vacation for workers and put
down on child labor[122].
As is often the case with labor laws a chasm exist between the law and
what is enforced.
Another major factor in the decline of anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil was
that the focus of anarchists shifted from labor to other concerns like fascism.
The late 1920s saw the anarchist movement shift away their focus from
labor and start to address issues that were harder to control and fight like the
global rise in fascism and the growing communist threat.
During the first twenty years of the century communist had existed in
Brazil but their power was marginal as they were too removed from the masses and
too authoritarian for the anarchists. In
1923, all of the communists in Latin America numbered only 50,000.[123] In Brazil former anarchist lead by Astrogoldo
Pereira formed the Partido Communista do Brasil (PCB) in 1922.[124]
Over the next decade most of the energies of both the anarchist and communist
movements in Brazil went to discrediting each other. The largest issue of dispute in Brazil as well as between
anarchist and communists all over the world was the uses of force and authority
in the Russian Revolution. Anarchist
papers like the famous A Plebe[125] would print articles by Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman, well known American anarchists who had been to Russia at the
invitation of Lenin shortly after the Revolution[126].
The communists would print revenge articles by Lenin denouncing Goldman
and Berkman, and so in Brazil the political left eroded with bitter fights like
these. The ideological dispute put
off workers from joining the PCB and all during the 1920s their movement lacked
the support of the working class.[127]
The anarchists were right to concern themselves with the spread of
fascism but unfortunately for them they lacked the power to do anything to halt
it. Fascism rose in Brazil just as it did all over the world in
direct response to the global depression. Brazilians
nationalism was appearing in organizations like to Brazilian Intergralist
movement which was based in Sao Paulo and sputtered the motto 'God, Fatherland,
and Family'.[128]
The change from a radical libertarian[129]
majority in politics and labor to an authoritarian majority was a slow process
that took the entire 1920s to slowly unfold.
At he same time labor was shrinking in power and influence an eager
politician Getulio Getulio Vargas (1930-1945) was making a bid to come to power.
In 1930, union membership for all of Brazil was only at 220,000 with a
fraction belonging to anarchist (2,000) and communists (4,000) sponsored unions.[130] In
1935, one last attempt at uniting
the parties of the left in Brazil took place.
The Alianca Nacional Libertadora was founded in 1935 and had four
months of incredible growth until it was banned by the Vargas administration.[131]
Even with unionized labor being such a minority in a country of 30
million politicians like Vargas knew the importance of controlling urban Brazil. These few workers produced more wealth with their labor then
millions of rural Brazilians. One company in Sao Paulo in 1932,
paid more taxes to the federal government that 15 of Brazil's rural
states.[132]
The government was supportive of unions it could control.
When Confederacao Operaria Catolica (Catholic Action) was founded
in 1933 it had the full support of the government.[133] These Catholic Action groups were supported in
a number of dioceses but never really gathered any enthusiasm among the church's
hierarchy. Another Catholic organization named the Workers Circle tried
to organize workers but made very small membership and it lacked the full
approval of the Catholic Church.[134]
Vargas came to power in 1930 after he declared that the election he had
just lost for president was fixed. Almost
immediately after taking power he attacked the Brazilian left.
Vargas closed down labor publications, arrested 600 labor leaders and
prohibited strikes and meetings and demonstrations.[135] Throughout his time in office Vargas had a
perennial fear of the PCB in Brazil as they were in constant contact with
Moscow. Vargas used this as an
excuse to restrict foreign memberships in unions and to denounce communism as a
'exotic ideology' and a ' non-Brazilian doctrine'.[136]
This fear unfolded and on January 31, 1931 Vargas ordered all communists
arrested and their property seized.[137] Anarchists were less of a threat as they had no
national power behind them as the Moscow backed the PCB.
Estado Nova (New State) was the program Vargas implemented when he
implemented a complete take over of the Brazilian government in 1937 but in
reality it was a slow progress and not an over-night rebellion. The Unionization
Law of March, 19 1931 or Decree 19,770 legalized trade unions but provided
tutelage for the unions.[138]
Vargas, wanted to implement control over his unions in the same way the
Mussolini in Italy had dealt with his anarchist and communists by making the
unions there legal and controlling them. By
1934, the Ministry of Labor was suppose to attend all union meeting to monitor
them; and the state only recognized one union for every industry of workers.[139] Finally on September 30, 1937 the Brazilian
army claimed they discovered a 'Cohen Plan' for a communist revolution in
Brazil. Vargas's reaction was to
cancel the upcoming presidential election and with the help of the military
complete his blood-less take over of Brazil.[140]
On November 10, 1937 Vargas officially announced Estado Novo a new
constitution based on corporatist and fascist ideas.
The Vargas government dissolved national, state and city councils and
banned any thing close to union activity as 'anti-social and harmful'.[141] Vargas's Estado Novo was not a quick
development but a long gradual process in which Vargas was very interested in
promoting industrialization and proving to major American investors like
Standard Oil and the United States Steel Corporation that Brazil was a stable
place.[142]
This truly was a fascist takeover of Brazil as Italy and Germany congratulated
Vargas[143]
on his success and photographs of Brazil's new leader where mandated in all
public places.[144]
Anarchists in Brazil now had to struggle for breath.
Their daily mission was simply to maintain their freedom and keep their
passionate struggle alive. Many a
jaded anarchist decided to leave Brazil like Oreste Ristori, who left to fight
in the massive anarchist revolution in Spain.
Ristori kept on fighting in Europe just as he spent a lifetime promoting
the anarchist cause in Brazil, he was finally shot to death by the Germans as a
member of the Italian resistance in 1944.[145]
Conclusion
In a span of forty years
anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil had come full circle.
What had started out as a small movement of anarchists who took an
interest in organized labor ended up just as it had started a small determined
segment of Brazil's population. Anarcho-syndicalism
is important to the history of organized labor in Brazil because it represented
the position of a whole generation of Brazilian immigrants.
It displayed through dramatic events like the general strikes of 1917
that Brazil's working class had the capacity to organize themselves without
coercion, without authority, outside of the capitalist system.
The failed revolt of 1918 is important because if it succeeded (if only
for a short while) it would have been the Paris Commune or Spanish Civil War of
South America. At that point in
1918 the working class population of Brazil had no love of the government or the
employers and ridding the success of 1917 the anarchists might of taken power.
The results of the attempted revolt of 1918 was the political repression
that deported most of the anarchist leadership of the syndicalism unions.
The result of years of political repression is a movement in 1919 that
was missing many of the key players in the 1917 general strike.
The failed general strikes on 1919 signaled the end of massive anarcho-synicalist
unions and the start to a more repressive political state in Brazil.
Passionate Brazil experienced the full spectrum of modern political
diversity in the first four decades of the 20th century.
The sad result of one of South America's greatest organized labor
achievements was the rise fascism in Brazil and the rule of Vargas.
In 1999, anarcho-syndicalism is alive in Brazil.
The C.O.B. still keeps an active voice in national and international
politics. The rebirth was a result
of the massive wildcat strikes on the Brazilian waterfront in the mid-1980s.
In 1988, the C.O.B. aligned itself with the International Workingman’s
Association (IWA)[146]. The
IWA today is the world’s largest anarcho-sydicalist organization with chapters
in many countries and the Brazilian C.O.B. plays an active role within that
organization.
Appendix
A
Poem by Sylvio de
Figueredo
Jesus Christ
Great Anarchist! Oh
pallid figure
of a rebel who,
among the insane,
dared to raise ever
bigger
a ringing cry
against slavery.
Who, in contrast to
the Roman rot,
against the foul
opulence of the orgies,
dreamed of a
universal redemption.
My poor Christ,
good martyr sublime,
the cross is not
required to redeem
the generation of
despised poor,
But the struggle on
that final battle
among the shouts of
your brothers in the fight
and the rubble of
the rebels on the barricades.
Appendix
B
Glossary
of Terms
Anarchism- A
philosophy of resistance to, and criticism of, all statist laws and
authoritarianism; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and
are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.[147](For
the record the anarchist of Brazil during this time would not associate
anarchism with any form of violence). It is important to note that in Brazil at this time not
all anarchists were supporters of the labor movement. Some strongly criticized the anarchist role in labor unions
as reformative and not revolutionary. There
are a number of forms of anarchism that are neither communist or syndicalist in
nature. In Brazil at this time the
only other factions were individualist and mutualists.
An example of an individualist-anarchist would be Max Stirner in
Germany or Henry David Thoreau in America.
A famous mutualist would be Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
Syndicalism-
A theory of economy that advocates worker-controlled unions controlling the
means of production in loosely connected associations. Reform Syndicalist were
not numerous in Brazil but they were in some countries like Italy.
A reform syndicalist would advocate that workers take over the means of
production through reform within the existing political system.
Socialism-
In this time and region of the world, socialism was used as a common term for
anyone who opposed capitalism and tried to organize a world without it.
Both anarchists and communists considered themselves socialists. Anarchists were not reform socialists but rather 'libertarian
socialists', which is a term still used today by some factions of the anarchist
movement.
Communism-
Communists were party socialists who backed highly-organized and authoritative
socialist organizations. In Brazil
communists were closely connected with the USSR, and followed a similar
political agenda.
Anarcho-Syndicalism-
Anarcho-syndicalism is the
vision of a worker controlled economy free from the authority of government and
the ruling class. Anarcho-syndicalism
is organized along industry rather than by trade. Anarcho-syndicalism maintains that economic and social
monopolies must be replaced by free, self-managed federations of agriculture and
industrial workers united in a system of councils.[148]
Anarcho-Communism-
Although rare in Brazil, anarcho-communists advocate a direct path to the pure
communism at the end of the communist revolution.
The PCB communists advocate a communist state where in theory, a
communist government is established in order to destroy itself and slowly erode
away and dissolve. Anarcho-communist
advocates disagree with the traditional communist claim that a strong communists
state is needed, they advocate a direct path to the pure communism that Marx
spoke of. To summarize they agree
with the traditional PCB communists on the end result of a communist revolution
they just disagree on the methods used to achieve those ends.
General Strike-
One of the most important tools in the anarcho-syndicalist revolution.
The general strike is used to halt industry and the economy while the
transition to a libertarian and socialist economy could be set up.
Libertarian- Before
the 1950s libertarian was synonymous with anarchism.
This word is used in the anarchist sense and has no connection to the
bourgeois laissez faire libertarian party of modern times and their capitalist
agenda.
Direct Action- As
opposed to the lengthy process of conventional political action, direct action
promotes action without government interference.
Scab- A
scab is someone who crosses a picket line and replaces the labor of workers on
strike.
Bibliography
Alba, Victor. Politics
and the Labor Movement in Latin America Stanford, Californian: Stanford
University Press, 1968.
This is a massive
work on the politics of labor in South America. This book contains excellent information on South American
anarcho-syndicalism and has a chapter on anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil.
Arvich, Paul. Anarchist
Portraits. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Paul Arvich is
foremost English-language expert on anarchism in America.
This book contains a chapter that outlines general anarchist activity in
Brazil.
Bookchin, Murray. The
Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868-1936. San Francisco, California,
AK Press, 1998.
Murray Bookchin's history of the Spanish Civil War provided some information for comparisons between anarcho-syndicalism in Brazil and Spain as well as information on the famous educator Francis Ferre