By REGINALDO BENEDITO DIAS*
The trajectory of the AP according to Duarte Pereira
The beginning of proletarianization
In the commented periodization that he systematized in 1973, Duarte Pereira noted that, from 1965 to 1967, Ação Popular matured as a revolutionary democratic party. In 1967, the organization would experience a crossroads: “Consolidate itself as a revolutionary democratic party or transform itself into a proletarian revolutionary party?” (PEREIRA, 1973). In a later intervention, he clarified that it was the year in which “the discussion of Marxism within the AP” was installed (PEREIRA, 2001). In AP documents, it would come to be referred to as the beginning of the “proletarianization” process.
In 1967, through debate by the National Committee, two documents were approved that would have repercussions on the life of the AP. One was about the vanguard party, seen as necessary to lead the Brazilian revolution. In 1963, when it was founded, the AP defined itself as a movement and not a party. As priority was given to deepening the debate on Marxism, the question of the vanguard party was put on the agenda. The other document called for the Theoretical and Ideological Debate (DTI), aimed at the study and organized debate of Marxism. In the terms of a retrospective made at a later juncture: “Strictly speaking, our complex and rich process of ideological transformation began” (APML, 1971c, p. 27).
Although the “Base Document” attributed decisive importance to Marxism, there had been no systematic study of it. According to the text that convened the DTI, the AP, since its foundation, had a socialist definition, approved in the DB and reaffirmed in the RP, but it almost would have fallen into the pretense of forging a theory on the margins of the contemporary revolutionary tradition.
It lacked a scientific theory, which would be Marxism, the axis of the process then established. He clearly systematizes the rupture: “But just as one shouldn't ask for too much, one shouldn't ask for too little from the current debate either. To ask for too little would be to deny the need to centralize the debate on the study of Marxism, and to pretend to study, at the same time, the thought of Teilhard Chardin, Emanuel Mounier, Bertrand Russel, etc. […] At the current stage, in order to arrive at coherent results and even prepare for future stages, it is necessary to consider the critical study of Marxism as the axis and ordering principle of the discussion” (AP, 1967, p. 14).
In the literature on the history of the AP, there is a group of interpreters, identified with the Catholic left, who criticize this transformation. One of the most expressive authors of this line is Luiz Gonzaga de Souza Lima. For him, in the post-1964 period, when it distanced itself from Christian humanism and modified its social bases, the AP became “a small and impatient organization that verbally disputed with other clandestine organizations the hegemony in the direction of the working class and the Brazilian revolution ” (LIMA, 1979, p. 47).
In correspondence with Nilce Azevedo Cardoso, a former AP militant, Duarte Pereira (2002) replicated the approach of Luiz Gonzaga de Souza Lima[I]; “This negative view of the evolution of the post-64 AP has no basis in the slightest. The coup did not paralyze the development of the AP, either from a quantitative or qualitative point of view. The organization went through a temporary crisis, indeed an inevitable one, but, at the end of (19)65, it began to grow again and at a higher political-ideological level. The author underestimates, although he mentions, the difficulties caused by the growing repression of the dictatorial-military regime; he attributes almost all of the problems to the AP's shift in orientation. JUC has not changed its basic course; survived? By any chance, was it the AP that chose illegality? Going to the bottom: should the PA remain in a reformist position? Should it remain predominantly petty-bourgeois? On the other hand, would the Catholic Church have advanced without the advancement of class struggle and resistance to the regime? And did this advance not rely significantly on the contribution of the AP?”.
And he adds: “The passage from one phase to another was not determined by the arbitrary and capricious decision of these or those leaders, by ill will towards this or that militant; essentially resulted from the real changes in the country and in the world and the impositions that resulted from those who wanted to persist in militancy and commitments to fight against the military regime, against imperialism and for a socialist society. This is the thread that many have forgotten: the break with the reformist ambiguities of the initial phase of the PA and the option for the revolutionary path, including the armed struggle immediately imposed by the coup d'état and the dictatorial regime that followed; the struggle to change the social composition of the organization and link it more and more to the working class, the peasantry and the fundamental masses of salaried and self-employed workers, and not just students and university-level professionals; in light of these needs, the demand to advance in the scientific understanding of Brazilian society and the world and in the programmatic, strategic and tactical orientation of the fight; and, in this effort, the understanding of the fragile and idealistic theoretical bases of “Christian humanism”, including in its most elaborate forms, but still eclectic and fundamentally idealistic, of thinkers like Father Vaz – it is all this that propelled the AP forward, for its matured revolutionary and class commitments, for its progressive assimilation of Marxism, and for its approach to the Marxist forces that really exist in the world” (PEREIRA, 2002).
Such a process has not been painless in the history of the AP. There are records of evasion of cadres who did not identify with the changes and sectarianism of the organization's internal wings, supporters of immediate redefinition in favor of Marxism. According to Aldo Arantes' memoirs, Duarte Pereira had a prominent role in the debate about Marxism and about how the AP would develop the relationship between its Marxist position and religion.
Arantes quoted the following passage from a document (without identifying him), inspired by Lenin's thought and systematized by Duarte Pereira: “For the Marxist-Leninist party, the admission of religious militants as long as they accept, like other militants, the program party, act in one of its organizations and contribute financially to its activities” (ARANTES, 2013, p. 177). There was no incompatibility, but he pointed out: “The expectation is that religious militants, through their struggle experiences, combined with Marxist theoretical training, end up breaking with their religious beliefs and practices” (ARANTES, 2013, p. 177).
About Althusser
A recurring theme regarding the historical phase in which the AP promoted theoretical and ideological debate in favor of Marxism, the influence of Louis Althusser was addressed by Duarte Pereira in several interventions. The best systematized one is found in an electronic correspondence with Professor Carlos Nelson Coutinho, when he echoed the comment, present in a book by Michael Löwy, regarding the fact that he, Duarte Pereira, had translated and edited Althusser's first published text in Brazil, included in the militants' training material. It circulated with the seal of Editora Sinal, which the AP set up for this purpose.
Duarte Pereira assures that “AP as a whole, for a brief period, suffered the influence of Althusser's thought. The official document of the AP that most demonstrates this is entitled 'Resolution on the Theoretical and Ideological Debate'”. However, he points out that “AP's rapprochement with Althusser, in addition to being brief, was never total and unrestricted” (PEREIRA, 2005). He clarifies that, in the very book that publishes Althusser's text, another text was included as a counterpoint, prepared by the editor of a French magazine of dialogue between Christians and Marxists.
On the specificity of the reception of the work of the French Marxist, he states: “One of the themes that most attracted us in Althusser's rereading of Marxism was precisely his proposal of a 'theoretical anti-humanism'. We lived in Brazil the period of greatest influence of the 'humanist' reading of Marxism” (PEREIRA, 2005).
Citing the repercussion of authors such as Roger Garaudy and Erich Fromm, reinforced in the JUC and AP circles by the work of French Jesuits such as Jean-Yves Calvez, Henri Chambre and Pierre Bigo, he assesses (PEREIRA, 2005): “Toda this rereading” "humanist" of Marxism was based on the revaluation of Marx's juvenile works, especially his Economic-philosophical manuscripts […]. Bigo's guiding thesis is that Capital could only be understood in the light of previous and founding anthropology, expressed in the “Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts”.
He systematizes the theoretical and political implications: “All these works, which were widely disseminated in Brazil in the (19)60s, tended towards an impossible theoretical conciliation between Marxism and Christianity and, on the political level, towards a moderate and diluted reformist program, centered on the slogan of “humanization”: of the economy, politics, culture, etc. This current of ideas had an influence on the leadership of the AP. In this sense, Althusser's proposal of "theoretical anti-humanism" and his insistence on the need for science to formulate and support a revolutionary political program in a socialist sense had the positive impact of freeing us from the theoretical and practical impasses created by this tradition. “humanist”, with its “essentialist-deductivist” method and its conciliatory practices” (PEREIRA, 2005).
In this context, Althusserian emphasis on the “rupture” between Marx's youth and maturity was positive. In short: “At that moment when the PA was opening up to the debate on Marxism and suffering in many of its sectors the distortions of a dogmatic, almost religious interpretation of Marxism due to the influence of Soviet manuals and then of Chinese texts, the The polemic provoked by Althusser invited a historical-critical approach to Marxism and therefore, paradoxical as it may be, had an anti-dogmatic meaning. This is clear in the “Resolution on the Theoretical and Ideological Debate”” (PEREIRA, 2005).
He considers that the controversy over Althusser, like others, was badly ended: “The Althusserian influence would soon be submerged by 'Marxism-Leninism-Maoism' and, more than that, by the empiricism of the policy of 'integration in production' – to 'learn Marxism in practice'” (PEREIRA, 2005). In other words: “Under the influence of Mao's thought, Althusserianism began to be criticized in the PA, especially its theoreticist tendency (manifested in the concept of 'theoretical practice') and its debatable distinctions between theory and ideology and between philosophy and science” (PEREIRA, 2005).
Cuba and China
Duarte Pereira's interventions subsidize the understanding of the forms of reception of the Cuban and Chinese experiences in the life of the AP, especially after 1964, with explicit adherence to the objective of promoting the revolutionary armed struggle.
Focusing on the situation immediately after the 1964 coup d'état, Duarte Pereira firstly indicates some evidence of the influence of the Cuban Revolution. One concerns the fact that the AP leaders who went into temporary exile in Uruguay, close to Brizola's leadership, considered armed reconquest. Another piece of evidence refers to the trajectory of ex-priest Alípio de Freitas and ex-deputy Paulo Stuart Wright, who took refuge in Mexico and later in Cuba, where they underwent guerrilla training, before returning to Brazil and playing an important role in the PA reorganization phase.
In the line defined by the “Political Resolution” of 1965, although it is also possible to identify resonances of the Chinese revolution, the greatest influence was the Cuban experience. Duarte Pereira (2014) addressed this inflection: “When the problem of having to organize armed resistance was posed, the great expression, the great inspiration, the great example was the Cuban Revolution. It was to her that we turned initially, in search of teaching and inspiration. There was initially a big influence of what was called among us – some don't like that expression, but I think it was accurate – focus theory”.
The deepening of strategic elaboration called for systematic studies. In the series of “Texts for debates”, there was a translation of a work by Guevara and a subsidy, written by Duarte Pereira himself, was incorporated, in which the characteristics of the so-called theory of focus were explained.
Another contribution present in this range of texts was elaborated by Herbet de Souza, linking the humanist imaginary to the legacy of the Cuban Revolution (PEREIRA, 2001): “Betinho brought a position, which was very current in leftist movements in Latin America, spread by the Cubans, the so-called revolutionary humanism. It was an attempt to avoid major ideological problems and unite around this broad slogan. And they tried during this period to introduce this discussion in the AP”.
The AP would maintain relations with the Cuban Revolution for some time, as evidenced by the fact that it was represented at the meeting to create the Latin American Solidarity Organization (OLAS), in 1967. During this period, however, the influence of the Revolution was already on the rise. Chinese.
Duarte Pereira assesses that the influence of the Cuban Revolution never prevailed in the AP. Referring to the turning point brought about by the approval of the “Political Resolution”, he guarantees: “If you carefully analyze the documents and the practice that follows, the AP never adopted the perspective of the guerrilla focus” (PEREIRA, 2011). He points out, for example, that the first point of the “Political Resolution” strategy advocates the Radicalization of the Institutional Struggle: “The first point was not the armed struggle, the preparation of a guerrilla focus, etc. […] The first objective was to resume the mass struggle, adapt it to the new situation, with other objectives” (PEREIRA, 2011).[ii]
He assesses that the AP did not align itself, among other reasons, because it disagreed with the idea that the focus preceded the existence of the party and because of its tradition of mass struggle: “We thought there was a need to have a party at the forefront of the struggle and so we were committed to reorganizing the AP as a revolutionary organization. We thought it necessary to resume, expand and deepen the work of the masses. And we thought that, at the same time, we should start a phase of preparing staff, of more strategic studies of the country, so that later on, when the political conditions, party and mass organizations were more mature, then they would be placed in the order of day armed actions themselves” (PEREIRA, 2011).
In the later documents of the PA, elaborated at the time of the definition by Maoism, this phase would be referred to as “reinterpreted Phoquism”, due to the characteristics of its forms of reception. In any case, pointing to competition from the Maoist influence, pondered Duarte Pereira (2014): “As we deepened our knowledge of the Cuban experience, the more we became convinced that it had nothing to do with our situation, and that it was not on which we could rely to carry out the resistance we wanted”.
To broaden the understanding of the development of relations with China, Duarte Pereira systematized a brief chronology. A first contact took place in 1963, in Salvador, during the First Seminar of Students from the Underdeveloped World, involving academics linked to the Communist Party of China (PCCh) and activists from UNE and AP. After the 1964 coup, as a way of repaying the solidarity received in the rumored episode in which members of a Chinese trade mission were arrested in Brazil, a delegation from the Brazilian Popular Mobilization Front was invited to visit that country. In 1965, Vinicius Caldeira Brant, who was in France, represented the AP in the Brazilian delegation. In contact with members of the CPC leadership, Brant received an invitation for a national leader of the PA to visit China.
In 1966, the National Coordinator of the PA, Aldo Arantes, carried out this political mission, establishing official relations between the PA and the Chinese Institute for Friendship with the Peoples of the World. Although it was not a formal relationship between communist parties, a link that the PCCh maintained with the PC do B, the negotiations resulted in the establishment of forms of support for the AP: “In the understandings [...] it was agreed to send militants from the organization to take courses political-military forces” (ARANTES, 2013, P. 143).
Upon his return, the AP coordinator prepared a document entitled “The theory of the Chinese revolution”, systematizing what would be the structural elements of the Maoist strategy (ARANTES, 2013, p. 143). Known as the “Yellow Document” because of the color of the cover, it was a watershed in the history of this relationship.
In 1967, in this new phase of the relationship, Duarte Pereira received the task of commanding the first group that was destined for China, but there were setbacks with the withdrawal of tickets on the stopover held in Montevideo. The delegation was led by another member of the National Command, Carlos Aumond. The leader Jair Ferreira de Sá, who was also part of this delegation, was enthusiastic about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and, upon returning to Brazil, led the formation of the Maoist current, known, in the internal dispute, as “Current 1”.
However, considering the preceding facts, intervened Duarte Pereira (2001): “What I want to emphasize is that our first Chinese influence did not come through the cultural revolution. The cultural revolution takes place at the end of 1966. Our first contact with the Chinese was to learn about their revolutionary experience, particularly their way of looking at this form of struggle, how to conduct an armed and revolutionary struggle, the revolutionary transformation of the country”.
At the beginning of the DTI, there were five inner wards (AP, 1968c). Two would be characterized by an anti-Marxist and reformist profile, while the others were variations of revolutionary horizons. The target of the resolution was the anti-Marxist bloc. For his part, Duarte Pereira (1973) highlights clashes against the anti-Marxist current and also against another that defended an immediate Marxist definition.
At the end of the First Expanded Meeting of the National Directorate (RADN), two currents, listed in the internal life as “1” and “2”, polarized the dispute over the redefinitions guided by the AP.
Led by Jair Ferreira de Sá, “Current 1” presented the “Scheme of the Six Points”, identified with Maoism. According to its cleavage, Maoism was understood as the third stage of Marxism, the Marxism of today. He characterized Brazil as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, advocating that the revolution should be national-democratic. Having the countryside as the privileged arena of the revolutionary struggle, he chose the strategy of a prolonged people's war. He understood that there had been a vanguard party in Brazil, the PCB, but it had entered a state of degeneration due to the revisionist line it had taken. Without this meaning the extension of the previous acronym, the task was to rebuild the Brazilian workers' party. Inspired by practices of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it established that PA militancy was re-educated in a process of “integration in production”, in the countryside and in the city (AP, 1968a).
“Current 2”, on the other hand, characterized Brazilian society as capitalist and advocated that the revolution should have an immediately socialist character. Defining themselves as the Marxist-Leninists of the AP, its signatories did not accept the thesis of the third stage of Marxism and rejected the policy of “integration in production”. Assessing that the old workers' party, the PCB, had become revisionist and had generated several dissidences that distorted Marxism-Leninism, they argued that the task was to build “a new Vanguard Party of the Proletariat of the Leninist type” (AP, 1968b, p. 42 ).
The definition by Maoism
In 1968, at the conclusion of the First Expanded Meeting of the National Directorate (RADN), the positions of “Current 1” prevailed and the leaders of “Current 2” were expelled from the AP. The reply to the minority group's theses was published by the text “Unmask and liquidate politically and ideologically the Opportunist and Provocative Group of Rolando” (undercover name of Vinicius Caldeira Brant), whose writing was entrusted to Duarte Pereira.
In the line of argument of this document, which translated the positions of “Current 1”, the opponents of “Current 2”, from a practical point of view, were accused of attacking the integration policy with the fundamental masses and, from a theoretical point of view , of attacking Mao Tse-Tung's thought, recognizing his contribution only within the framework of the Chinese experience, without criteria of universality as a new phase of Marxism. In the military line, since they would seek to cover up the true nature of their strategy, they would be “embarrassed focusists” (AP, 1968d, p. 29).
Despite the alignment with “Current 1” and the role played in the outcome, in the interview he gave to Unicamp researchers, Duarte Pereira (2001) offers a nuanced view of this clash: “It was a hasty split, like others there have been. Fields were not delimited sufficiently. Within “Current 1”, the current led by Jair, there was never a consensus on all issues. Paulo Wright and I never agreed with the character of Brazilian society as being semi-feudal and semi-colonial, although we were part of that current. The problem was another. Our issue was the protracted people's war, the need to prepare for it [...]. We had disagreements from the beginning.”
It is not just a reconstruction of memory. In the document used to refute the theses of “Current 2”, the existence of different positions in “Current 1” regarding the nature of Brazilian society is highlighted.[iii] In this way, Duarte Pereira says he maintained points of contact with the vision of his opponents.
It also points out the heterogeneity of the members of “Current 2”. Although this current was characterized in the internal dispute as having a supposed tendency to assimilate Marxism through theory, an echo of Althusser's influence, Duarte Pereira identifies differences between its leaders. Vinicius Caldeira Brant, known as Rolando, “showed himself to be more of a classic Leninist”, opposing Maoism on that basis. Alípio de Freitas and Altino Dantas would be leaders without a rigid theoretical orientation, having a practical style, influenced by foquista militarism. The great Althusserians would be Sergio Bezerra Menezes and Maria do Carmo Menezes. As the dispute ended, they were characterized by their opponents as bearers of Foquist influence, by their theoretical bias and by their refusal to integrate with the fundamental masses.
On the other hand, according to the majority position, the “active and creative assimilation of Marxism-Leninism in integration with the masses, in the practice of class analysis, and in the active ideological struggle against all forms of anti-Marxism” (AP, 1968c, p. 11). Even recognizing the resonance of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the way the integration policy was adopted, Duarte Pereira warned that, with different nuances, this policy had precedents in the history of the AP: “There is a text that is deep down that I gave in (to the AEL), called 'Professionalization of staff', which introduces this need for staff to be linked to factory production, to the field, to do this work” (PEREIRA, 2001). He points out the difference: “It wasn't the prospect of turning this into a militancy criterion. That's why you talk about frames. It was for a more experienced person, who had specific preparation, who was able to do this voluntarily” (PEREIRA, 2001). Exposing his divergence with the form assumed by the adopted policy, he declares that “it was an unsuccessful vote”.
As a matter of internal discipline, he accepted the regulations: “I was already working as a laborer in Osasco, but I was acting as an outsider intellectual, without living as an integrated person. He already had contact with working sectors. So, I went there to integrate” (PEREIRA, 2001). Because of his physical characteristics, he considered that the possibilities of disputing a factory job without arousing suspicion were not favorable. Judging that her case required qualification, she planned to take a professional electrician course. But, for various reasons, he did not experience direct integration: “I integrated into neighborhoods, I participated in common life” (PEREIRA, 2001).
In his criticism of the way in which the policy was adopted, using his experience as a guide, he comments that he gave up professional ties as a journalist and university professor and interrupted the activity he maintained in the union organization of journalists, in which he had gained leadership. In addition, he maintained varied relationships with the intelligentsia: “All of that was lost and we concentrated fundamentally on just this task” (PEREIRA, 2001).
Referring to the limitations that this militancy criterion imposed on management activities, he asks: “How do you run an organization nationally that involves traveling and meetings, if you have a factory routine?” He clarifies his position: “I defended that the integration policy should be selective and not a criterion of militancy. It should be for the most selected, most experienced cadres, who undergo specific preparation and who volunteer for this task. The work should continue on all the other militant fronts we had. What will be, later on, the policy that will be adopted after the self-criticism of that initial and sectarian phase” (PEREIRA, 2001).
Duarte Pereira also declares himself critical of analyzes that reduce the experience to caricature, as other AP leaders would have done in their memoirs, and recalls that there was a rectification in the following conjuncture, referring to the self-critical movement.
* Reginaldo Benedito Dias He is a professor at the Department of History at the State University of Maringá.
To read the first part of the article click on https://dpp.cce.myftpupload.com/a-historia-da-acao-popular/?doing_wp_cron=1630978328.1571218967437744140625
References
POPULAR ACTION. Base document, 1963.
__. Political Resolution, 1965.
__. History, 1966a.
__. Research on the situation of the organization, 1966b.
__. Resolution on the Theoretical and Ideological Debate, 1967.
__. the six points, 1968a.
__. two positions, 1968b.
__. Self-criticism of the National Directorate, 1968c.
__. Unmask Rolando's opportunistic and provocative group, 1968d.
__. Audacity in objectives and rigor in methods, 1969.
__. Actively prepare people's war – carry out research of strategic areas – deploy support bases in the field, 1969b.
ARANTES, Aldo. soul on fire. Memoirs of a Political Activist. 1st. ed. São Paulo: Anita Garibaldi, 2013.
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Notes
[I] This reply could be extended to what Luiz Alberto Gómez de Souza, founder of the AP, wrote, whose point of view on the reformulation that took place after 1964 was in the same vein. Gómez de SOUZA (1987, p. 102) stated that the movement had become “a rigid Marxist-Leninist party without originality”. Ironically, he suggested that a study of this phase would be something like a “pathology of the political”, to understand “how a political movement went crazy”.
[ii] Refers to the second part of the “Political Resolution”, section dedicated to the Revolutionary Strategy. The first part of the RP makes a critical analysis of the previous period. The first phase of the insurrectionary struggle is defined as “strategic defensive”. In the sequence, the following development was foreseen: “preparation of the counter-offensive”, “general counter-offensive” and “insurrectional and mass struggle” (AP, 1965).
[iii] In this document, it reads: “Within Chain 1 there were several members who supported the predominantly capitalist character of our society, although they also defended the existence of a subordinate feudal mode of production, and there is even a companion who supports the dominant capitalist character of our society and denies the existence of feudalism in Brazil” (AP, 1968d, p. 33-34).