Octávio Brandão Rego ( Viçosa, September 12, 1896 -

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, March 15, 1980) was a Brazilian pharmacist, politician and activist. He was also a militant and theoretician in the

Brazilian Communist Party The Brazilian Communist Party (), originally the Communist Party of Brazil (), is a communist party in Brazil, founded on 25 March 1922. Arguably the oldest active political party in Brazil, it played an important role in the country's 20th- ...

(PCB in Portuguese), a movement that influenced a generation of left-wing activists and was responsible for spreading

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

concepts in Brazil.

Biography

Early years

Octávio Brandão was born in the city of Viçosa, in the state of Alagoas, in 1896. He had a traditional Catholic family, but split from religion at the age of 16. At the beginning of the 20th century, when the landowning oligarchy and political power were more involved in government, Brandão surprised the society of Alagoas with his libertarian concepts and attitudes. He was a pioneer of

agrarian reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...

in Brazil and went on pilgrimages through the interior of Alagoas preaching the distribution of land. He was part of the Brazilian anarchist movement in the first decades of the 20th century. When he was less than 20 years old, Octávio Brandão joined the fight for an eight-hour working day, which resulted in him being threatened with death by the local bourgeoisie and leaving his town. His first intellectual work, "Aspectos Pernambucanos nos Fins do Século XVI", was published in 1914 in the ''

Diário de Pernambuco ''Diário de Pernambuco'' (''Pernambuco Daily'') is a newspaper published in Recife, Brazil. The newspaper began publication on 7 November 1825. It is the oldest continuously circulating daily in Latin America and the oldest continuously circ ...

''. He graduated in pharmacy at the University of Recife, now the

Federal University of Pernambuco Federal University of Pernambuco (, UFPE) is a public university in Recife, Brazil, established in 1946. UFPE has 70 undergraduate courses and 175 postgraduate courses. , UFPE had 35,000 students and 2,000 professors. The university has three c ...

(UFPE). In 1919,

Astrojildo Pereira Astrojildo Pereira Duarte Silva (8 November 1890 – 21 November 1965) was a Brazilian politician, writer and journalist. He was a founding member of the Brazilian Communist Party The Brazilian Communist Party (), originally the Commun ...

visited him at the pharmacy where he worked and lent him some Marxist books.

Militancy

In 1920, Brandão became a member of the Grupo Clarté de Paris and, through the Grupo Comunista Brasileiro Zumbi, he joined the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) in the second half of 1922, becoming its national leader. In 1923, Octávio Brandão made the first Brazilian translation of ''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'' (), originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (), is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848. The ...

'' by

Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

and

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''

Laura Lafargue, published in the trade union newspaper ''Voz Cosmopolita''. In 1924, he began writing ''Agrarismo e industrialismo: ensaio marxista-leninista sobre a revolta de São Paulo e a guerra de classes no Brasil'' and tried to apply the principles of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

's ''

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ''Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism'', originally published as ''Imperialism, the Newest Stage of Capitalism'', is a book written by Vladimir Lenin in 1916 and published in 1917. It describes the formation of oligopoly, by the interlac ...

'' to the Brazilian reality, but instead placed industrialism as a pole that should be supported against conservative

agrarianism Agrarianism is a social philosophy, social and political philosophy that advocates for rural development, a Rural area, rural agricultural lifestyle, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Those who adhere ...

. The draft text was distributed and served as a basis for the theses that Astrojildo Pereira presented to the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Brazil in 1925. The complete book was only published in April 1926 under the pseudonym Fritz Mayer and with a false indication of the place of publication in order to evade

Artur Bernardes Artur da Silva Bernardes (8 August 1875 – 23 March 1955) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 12th president of Brazil from 1922 to 1926. Bernades' presidency was marked by the crisis of the First Brazilian Republic and th ...

' political police. Brandão's

dialectic Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...

was based on "thesis-antithesis-synthesis", a simplifying formula difficult to find in

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

, but which Brandão applied to everything. Inspired by his dialectic, he presented the trajectory of the workers' movement in Brazil in a triadic scheme and concluded that the thesis was the initial period of anarchist hegemony, the antithesis was the period of persecution unleashed by

Epitácio Pessoa Epitácio Lindolfo da Silva Pessoa (; 23 May 1865 – 13 February 1942) was a Brazilian politician and jurist who served as the 11th president of Brazil between 1919 and 1922, when Rodrigues Alves was unable to take office due to illness, after b ...

and the synthesis was the

proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialist ...

, inaugurated by the founding of the PCB. In 1925, he led the creation of ''A Classe Operária'', the Communist Party's first mass newspaper, of which he was the first editor. Two years later, he became editor-in-chief of the daily ''A Nação''. Communist ideas began to spread more widely among workers. In 1928, he was elected as one of the intendants to the Council of the then

Federal District A federal district is a specific administrative division in one of various federations. These districts may be under the direct jurisdiction of a federation's national government, as in the case of federal territory (e.g., India, Malaysia), or the ...

by the Bloco Operário e Camponês, an electoral front created by the PCB. Soon after the leftist turn of the

Third International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internation ...

, Brandão's ideas on the Brazilian revolution were condemned and accused of being right-wing. He had to make a self-criticism and was removed from his position in the party leadership. After being persecuted by the Vargas government, Brandão was deported to Germany for his political activities in 1931. However, he went to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, where he remained in exile for 15 years. From there, he criticized the outbreak of the November 1935 military uprisings under the command of

Luís Carlos Prestes Luís Carlos Prestes (January 3, 1898 – March 7, 1990) was a Brazilian revolutionary and politician who served as the Secretary (title), general-secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party from 1943 to 1980 and a senator for the Federal Distric ...

, already a member of the PCB. During the World War II, he worked for

Radio Moscow Radio Moscow (), also known as Radio Moscow World Service, was the official international broadcasting station of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1993, when it was reorganized into Voice of Russia, which was subsequently reorga ...

, where he produced programs in Portuguese. He also collaborated in the organization of the Third International. In 1947, after returning to Brazil, he was elected as one of the PCB's councillors to the Rio de Janeiro City Council. However, he was banned in 1948, along with all of the PCB's parliamentarians, after the party's registration was canceled by the

Superior Electoral Court The Superior Electoral Court (, TSE) is the highest body of the Brazilian Election Justice, Brazilian Electoral Justice, which also comprises one Regional Electoral Court (Brazil), Regional Electoral Court (, TRE) in each of the 26 states and th ...

(TSE in Portuguese). He went underground until 1958. In 1956,

Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

denounced

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's crimes and triggered an unprecedented crisis in the international communist movement. Brandão, affected by the situation, slowly drifted away from militancy. The PCB leadership's negligence towards its former militants also contributed to his attitude. He once again went underground with the 1964 coup and only reappeared publicly in 1979.

Death

Octávio Brandão died in Rio de Janeiro in 1980 at the age of 83. His entire collection is housed in the Edgard Leuenroth Archive (AEL), linked to the

State University of Campinas The University of Campinas (), commonly called Unicamp, is a public research university in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Brazil. Established in 1962, Unicamp was designed from scratch as an integrated Research institute, researc ...

(Unicamp), including books, documents, letters and notes.

Works

Books

* ''Canais e Lagoas'' (1916–17); * ''Agrarismo e industrialismo: ensaio marxista leninista sobre a revolta de São Paulo e a guerra de classes no Brasil'' (1924); * ''O niilista Machado de Assis'' (1958); * ''Combates e Batalhas'' (1978).

Texts and articles

* ''Uma Lei sobre a Imprensa Brasileira'' (1923); * ''Reação e Repressão: Carta do Brasil'' (1924)'';'' * ''Política de Quadros'' (1956); * ''Uma Etapa da História de Lutas'' (1957); * ''A Penúria da Crítica'' (1958); * ''A Ascenção Histórica do Brasil'' (1960); * ''Canais e Lagoas'' (1960); * ''Literatura sem ideologia'' (1960); * ''O Primado da Natureza - Ciência e Filosofia'' (1961); * ''Pelo Realismo Revolucionário'' (1961); * ''Vida Vivida - Recordações'' (1961); * ''O Brasil Explorado e Oprimido'' (1962); * ''O Petróleo e a Petrobrás'' (1962); * ''Combates da Classe Operária'' (1963).

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brandao, Octavio 1896 births 1980 deaths Brazilian writers Brazilian anarchists Brazilian communists Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro councillors