Anarchism was an influential contributor to the social politics of the First Brazilian Republic. During the epoch of mass migrations of European labourers at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, anarchist ideas started to spread, particularly amongst the country’s labour movement. Along with the labour migrants, many Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German political exiles arrived, many holding anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist ideas. Some did not come as exiles but rather as a type of political entrepreneur, including Giovanni Rossi's anarchist commune, the Cecília Colony, which lasted few years but at one point consisted of 200 individuals.
The working conditions and the oligarchic political system of the First Republic, which made it difficult for workers to participate, meant that anarchism quickly gained strength among workers. Revolutionary syndicalism exerted a great influence on the workers' movement, especially at workers' congresses and in the strikes of the period. Anarchists also contributed to the creation of a series of periodicals for the workers' press and founded several Modern Schools around the country. Anarchism ceased to be hegemonic in Brazil's workers' movement from the 1920s, when the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB) was created and, mainly, due to the repression promoted by the government of Artur Bernardes. Revolutionary syndicalism went into crisis during Getúlio Vargas' government, when the unions started to come under the control of the State, resulting in the decline of anarchism, now without spaces for social insertion.
Between 1946 and 1964, anarchists concentrated their efforts on building an anarchist political organization and on cultural actions, while maintaining initiatives in the trade unions. With the 1964 coup d'état, anarchist activity became even more limited due to repression. Despite this, there was a certain anarchist performance in the student movement of the period. In 1977, during the process of redemocratization, libertarians resumed their periodic press, starting a process of rearticulating anarchism in Brazil.
Beginning in the 1990s, the process of reorganizing anarchism in Brazil culminated in the creation of organizations influenced by the especifismo of the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU), in a process that resulted in the foundation of the Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira (CAB) in 2012. Anarchists have since maintained a relevant, albeit minority, participation in various types of collective actions, such as union organizations, community and neighborhood associations, student mobilizations, homeless and landless movements and in waves of protests, like those of 2013 and the demonstrations against the 2014 World Cup.
Origins Historiography normally attributes the roots of Brazilian anarchism to European immigration. After the abolition of slavery in Brazil during second half of the 19th century, political elites were convinced that the arrival of European workers would bring advantages to the country's economy. Brazilian intellectuals agreed that this would have a beneficial effect on the "whitening" of the Brazilian population. Very stimulated by Brazilian government propaganda, waves of Europeans came to Brazil between 1870 and the beginning of World War I, mostly Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards.
Most of the initial immigrants were of rural origin and without previous political or union experience. They often intended to work in agriculture, especially São Paulo coffee farms during the coffee cycle. Industrial establishments, however, tripled in Brazil during the 1880s, and many immigrants went to the nascent industrial centers after disastrous experiences in coffee plantations. The industrial centers also received new waves of European immigrants, now coming from urban areas, having previous experiences with union organization.
In this context, anarchism started to spread among Brazilian workers in the 1890s through propaganda groups and periodicals. Among the pioneers were: Gli Schiavi Bianchi (1892), L'Asno Umano (1894) and L'Avvenire (1894–1895), published in São Paulo by groups composed mostly of Italian immigrants; O Despertar (1898) and O Protesto (1898–1900), published in Rio de Janeiro by groups that brought together Brazilians, Spaniards and Portuguese. In the last decade of the 19th century, anarchist action was guided by mainly informal propaganda groups, who published periodicals, educated workers, and participated in various working class associations.
As early as 1892, anarchists organized the first May Day activities in Brazil and were soon the target of repression. In Rio de Janeiro, the police reported meetings of foreigners who sought to spread libertarian ideas among workers. The newspaper Correio Paulistano, official body of the Republican Party of São Paulo (PRP), denounced in 1893 the entry of anarchist immigrants into the country, classifying them as dangerous individuals, heads of "a terrible destructive sect", which aimed to "implant disorder and a fratricidal struggle, incompatible with the abundance and excellence of our living resources." During the activities of the 1898 May Day, several anarchists were arrested in São Paulo.
Anarchist experiments took place in Brazil during the 1890s, such as the Cecília Colony, undertaken by the Italian Giovanni Rossi. The experimental rural community, formed in 1890 in Palmeira, Paraná, sought to put libertarian (anarchist) principles into practice, such as collectivized work, a communal income fund, and sanctioned free love. The experiment ended in 1894, buffeted by sectors of the local elite and internal problems, such as material poverty and some settlers' difficulty adapting to the libertarian lifestyle. The Cecília Colony did not leave deep marks in the history of the Brazilian anarchist movement, but later some of its ex-colonists joined the military in São Paulo, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul.
First Republic (1889–1930)
Organized workers initially believed the Proclamation of the Republic would inaugurate a new era of political and social rights, but the republican regime ultimately disappointed them. Most workers were subjected to long working hoursup to 16 hours a daywith little time for rest and leisure. These workers lived in precarious housing or, in the case of company towns, in residences subject to employer control. They suffered from transportation and infrastructure problems. In the case of illness, disability, or unemployment, workers without a charitable fund from the company or a subscription to an aid society were completely unassisted due to the absence of social policies.
The First Republic's electoral system, with open voting and control of elections by the ruling parties, hindered workers' ability to participate in political life. This exclusionary, oligarchic political model and lack of institutional channels for social demands strengthened Brazilian anarchism during the First Republic. Workers included a considerable proportion of ex-slaves and proletarianized immigrants with very low civil, political, and social rights—circumstances that encouraged worker direct action. Revolutionary syndicalism, spread by anarchist militants, greatly influenced the labor movement.
Worker organization was a hallmark of Brazil during the First Republic, to which anarchists contributed. The volume of associations were particularly visible at times when the labor movement was on the rise, when favorable economic conditions conferred greater bargaining power on the workers and strike movements were more likely to succeed. Despite economic recessions and repression, which could lead to the closure of associations, the workers were prone to reconstitute and expand their organizations in more favorable circumstances. Union organizations often formed part of local or state federations. In revolutionary syndicalist tendencies, a federalist structure prevailed with non-hierarchical structures and no paid employees.
In the First Republic, the male labor force was instrumental in manufacturing and industrial work and female labor was significant in the textile and clothing sectors, reaching a majority in some places. The weight of women's work was always underrepresented in workers' organizations. In this sense, Brazilian anarchists took some initiatives to create "female nuclei", such as the Group for Female Emancipation in Rio de Janeiro. The seamstress unions, which emerged in 1919 in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, were among the few exceptions of unions organized and run exclusively by women, and were driven by anarchists such as Elvira Boni, Elisa Gonçalves de Oliveira, Aída Morais, Isabel Peleteiro, and Noêmia Lopes. Strikes organized with the strong female presence usually involved, in addition to demands for better wages and reduced working hours, complaints of sexual abuse and mistreatment by masters and foremen.
Strikes and associations for working hours
From the 19th century, there were several mutualist associations in Brazil that provided assistance to members in the event of illness, disability, unemployment, or death. During the early years of the labor movement, anarchist militants turned these associations into unionist bases with broader labor objectives such as the eight-hour day and a labor press. From 1900, multiple anarchist publications appeared in Brazil: O Libertário and A Terra Livre in Rio de Janeiro; O Amigo do Povo, A Lanterna and La Battaglia in São Paulo; A Luta in Porto Alegre; O Despertar in Curitiba; and O Regenerador in Ceará.
Conditions in the early 1900s were favorable for the emergence of workers' movements, including the 1903 economic boom and the proliferation of workers' organizations that grew from late 1890s militant action. A 1903 textile industry strike in the Federal District assembled workers across industries laid the groundwork for further direct action among Rio de Janeiro unions. A series of worker federations were founded in the subsequent years.
With the rise of the labor movement, the First Brazilian Workers' Congress was held in April 1906 in Rio de Janeiro's Centro Galego. At first, only socialists could participate, with "revolutionary elements ... prohibited". The anarchists, however, were present among the 43 delegates, including Edgard Leuenroth, Joaquim Mota Assunção, Luiz Magrassi, and Alfredo Vasques. They represented 28 associations—mainly industrial branches but also other industry: railroads, warehouses, coffee shops, stevedores, and the service sector. Anarchist proposals codified their revolutionary syndicalism into the labor movement, as unions participating in the congress signed common resolutions on union neutrality, federalism, decentralization, direct action, and the general strike. This revolutionary syndicalism program let various political and religious positions coexist, unified in the economic struggle common to the workers they represented. The Congress also created the Brazilian Workers' Confederation (, COB), founded in 1908, and its official press organ, A Voz do Trabalhador.
For the 1906 May Day, workers attended public rallies for the eight-hour work day and speakers paid tribute to the thousands of Russian revolutionaries victimized by the tsarist government. Anarchist speakers included Oreste Ristori in Santos, Everardo Dias in Campinas, and Leuenroth in Jundiaí. Workers continued to strike and win working hours reductions across Brazil. Strikes led to federal decrees for unions to legally represent the working class, acquire property, and establish assistance funds for their members. The 1907 Adolfo Gordo Law authorized state expulsion of foreigners who posed a risk to "national security or public tranquility", including anarchist militants, and was widely used in its first year.
The Brazilian Workers' Confederation and the 1913 Workers' Congress