Luís Carlos Prestes

Luís Carlos Prestes , Porto Alegre, January 3rd 1898 - Rio de Janeiro, March 7th 1990) was a soldier and a Politician Brésil IEN, whose life was very whole round towards the defense of its communist ideas.

He was general secretary of the Communist party of Brazil (PCB) - after Brazilian Communist party - and married with Olga Benário, assassinated in Germany, in the gas chamber, by the Nazis.

Biography

Formation and beginning of career

Swift was formed in engineering with the Military academy of Praia Vermelha (current military Institut of engineering ) to Rio de Janeiro in 1919. He was railway engineer with the railway Compagnie of Deodoro, as lieutenant until his change with the Rio Grande C Sul.

Beginning of the rebel movement

In October 1924, already captain, Luís Carlos Prestes took the head of a group of rebels in the area of missions Santo Ângelo, at the Rio Grande C Sul. Cutting the surrounding of the governmental troops, it moved towards north until Foz C Iguaçu. In the south-western area of State of Paraná, the group met some another coming from São Paulo and it was formed what one will call the Colonne Swift , with: 1500 men. They traversed: 25000 km. During all this program, the losses were approximately 750 men by the Choléra, the tiredness and the lack of horses. Relatively few men died in the combat, like Siqueira Campos, “musketeer” and friend the Swift ones.

Studies in Argentina and Soviet Union

Swift, called the “Knight of the Hope” went to study the Marxisme in Argentine, where it was had settled with the end of the year 1928. There, it maintained contacts with the Argentinian Communists Rodolfo Ghioldi and Abraham Guralski, this last being then direct it Internationale Communist (IC).

In 1930, it returns clandestinely to Porto Alegre, where it meets Getúlio Vargas twice. Although invited to militarily order the Revolution of 1930, it refused to support the movement.

Guest, in 1931, it will live in Soviet Union, working there as engineer and studying the Marxisme-léninisme. In August 1934, the Communist party of the Soviet Union the fact of entering the Brazilian PC.

After being elected member of the executive commission of the International Communist, it returns to the Brésil in 1934 in clandestinity, accompanied by the German Olga Benário, member also of the IC, whom it married. Its goal was to direct an armed revolution to Brazil, ordered since Moscow.

Command of the ANL and deportation of Olga

In Brazil, it found the new movement Ação Libertadora Nacional - ALN, of character antifascist and Anti-impérialiste who brought together soldiers, socialist or communist lieutenants, dissatisfied with the government of Vargas. Even clandestine, the “Rider of the Hope” was cordially acclaimed there as honorary president of the ANL during its first session in Rio de Janeiro.

With the enormous growth of the ANL, which venerated it, and the resumption of the contacts in the military mediums, Prestes sought to create bases for the seizure of power in Brazil. In June 1935, it published a proclamation flamer requiring “all the capacity” for the ANL and the inversion of the Vargas government.

Vargas benefitted immediately from the occasion and declared the ANL illegal what did not prevent Prestes from continuing to organize what was known later like the “Intentona comunista” (attempt at military mutiny).

In November, burst the insurrection in the garrisons of the army with Natal, Recife and Rio de Janeiro (which was then the federal district), but was easily and quickly controlled by Vargas, which started a violent one process of repression and imprisonments.

In March 1936, Prestes was stopped, lost its rank of captain and began a custodial sentence which will last nine years. His wife, enclosure was off-set and died in the Gas chamber with the Concentration camp of Ravensbrück. His/her daughter, Swift Anita Leocádia, was born in prison in Germany but was recovered by the mother of Swift after an intense international campaign.

The end of the new State , amnesties, and return to clandestinity

With the end of the new State, in 1945, Prestes was released and elected senator. He became general secretary of the PCB. The recording of the Party was cancelled and Swift, persecuted again, turned over to clandestinity.

In 1958, it was again condemned to the prison, but this judgment was cancelled by court order.

During the military dictatorship

After the Coup d'etat of 1964, by the institutional Act Nº 2, its civil laws was broken for ten years.

It was exiled in Soviet Union not to be again stopped. It returned to Brazil, thanks to the Amnistie of 1979.

The members of the PCB which remained with the country during the military dictatorship did not accept any more its orientations, because they considered them retrograde, too rigid and little at the time adapted. They withdrew the direction of the PCB to him. In opposition to the central committee of the party, it published the Lettre with the Communists in whom it defended an aggressive policy with respect to the dictatorship and a reconstitution of the communist movement in Brazil. In 1982, with some militants, it left the PCB and carried out a new combat for various causes of which nonthe payment of the foreign debt of Brazil or the election of Leonel Brizola in 1989.

----